


do not disturb

by nilchance



Series: ain't this the life [32]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, Multi, SpicyKustard, Underfell Papyrus (Undertale), Underfell Sans (Undertale), kustard - Freeform, offscreen fellcest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-08
Updated: 2020-01-17
Packaged: 2021-01-25 15:35:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 31,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21358570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nilchance/pseuds/nilchance
Summary: Edge, Red and Sans take a trip. Red is in nerd heaven. Edge gets some sleep. Sans sees the sights.
Relationships: Papyrus/Sans (Undertale), Sans/Sans (Undertale)
Series: ain't this the life [32]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/896544
Comments: 506
Kudos: 501





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> detailed content warnings in the endnotes

So here Sans stands in a school parking lot, clutching a to-go cup of gas station coffee like it’s going to save him and watching his brother try to look calm and collected as he spirals towards an anxiety attack. It’s not a promising start to the trip.

“Maybe you should check your luggage,” Papyrus says. 

Papyrus is wringing his hands again, gripping his own fingers painfully tight as he watches the 5th grade kids trickle by ones or twos onto the battered school bus. It’s a funny thing, seeing the way the parents act with their kids, all hugs and smiles and casual affection. Without meaning to, Sans keeps watching for somebody to grab their kid’s shoulder too hard or the familiar fear in a kid’s eyes when they look at the person who’s supposed to love them, but nope. All happy families here, it seems, or at least liars so good even a judge can’t tell.

He wonders if Papyrus finds himself looking for that kind of thing too, even when it’s Toriel and Frisk or Monster Kid and their parents. He wonders if Papyrus feels slightly uneasy when he doesn’t find it, like the ground under his feet is unsteady. Maybe not.

(Absently, nervously, Sans is picking apart the cardboard sleeve around his coffee mug. Papyrus isn’t the only one who suddenly doesn’t feel great about this.)

“Already checked the luggage three times, bro,” Sans says. “Pretty sure my shorts didn’t go anywhere.”

Papyrus turns towards him, clearly glad for the distraction of a little harmless annoyance. “Well, that’s fine for you to say now, but what are you going to do if you find yourself in a strange city with no shorts, hmm?”

“Strip off the rest of my clothes and volunteer to be a display in the natural history museum,” Sans says.

Papyrus makes an outraged noise that’s halfway to a laugh. That’s better.

From beside Sans, Red drawls, “They’d have to start charging admission.” His arm drapes heavily around Sans’s shoulder, the weight of Red’s body making him stagger. “Is that coffee? Gimme. It’s too goddamn early to be outside.”

“Fu--” Sans remembers at the last second that they’re in a school parking lot with kids walking by. “No. Mine. Also, watch your language or Tori’s gonna throw you straight off that bus at highway speeds.”

“Says the dude who almost dropped an f-bomb in front of a bunch of kids.” Red tries to reach around Sans for the coffee. When Sans holds it further away, Red leans his head on Sans’s shoulder and gives him tragic eyes. “Seriously, Sansy, I’m dying. Somebody kept me up real late last night.”

“Packing?” Papyrus asks brightly, his tone deliberately pointed as a really pointed thing. 

“Something like that,” Red says, grinning as he manages to pluck the cup out of Sans’s suddenly numb fingers; Sans is a little too busy wrangling with the mental images of how Edge could’ve worn Red out last night to defend his coffee with any real strength. Red takes a swig of coffee and hums his approval. “This is awful. Tastes like grad school.”

Burnt and faintly tasting of dick. Yep, sure sounds like Sans’s grad school experience. Not quite as casually as he means to, Sans asks, “Is Edge around?”

“Talking to the queen about some last minute security sh--” Papyrus raises a brow, and Red quickly amends that to, “-- stuff.”

Sans follows Red’s line of sight to where Edge and Toriel are under a tree by the entrance to the school, Edge all stern and serious and intense and Toriel nodding along with whatever he’s saying. He’s probably giving her a debrief like they’re conquering enemy territory instead of taking a herd of eleven year olds on a field trip. Considering Frisk’s history of getting into world-ending levels of trouble, it’s probably better to be prepared.

Maybe Edge feels Sans staring at him, because he turns his head to look towards them. One corner of his mouth ticks upwards in an almost smile. Sans gives him a lazy wave, not really expecting Edge to wave back, but to his delight, Edge does. It's stiff and hesitant, probably the first time Edge has ever given anybody a friendly wave in his life. Sans grins.

Apparently finishing their confab, Toriel and Edge head towards them. When Sans turns back to Red and Papyrus, he finds them exchanging eyerolls. Sans plucks the coffee out of Red’s fingers. "No more coffee for you. Your privileges are revoked."

“Worth it,” Red says. “Enjoy my backwash.”

Sans shrugs and downs the rest of the cup. It’s not like he and Red haven’t swapped plenty of body fluids.

“Cherry, that’s disgusting,” Papyrus says.

“Yep,” Red agrees, soaking up that affectionate exasperation like a sponge. “Sure ain’t the worst thing he’s ever had in his mouth.”

“Dude,” Sans says, trying to cram the single word full of _we are in front of a goddamn school and also my brother, shut the fuck up or I’ll never suck your dick again_. It’s an empty threat and Red knows it, judging from his brow waggle.

“True,” Papyrus sighs. “I have seen him commit some true culinary horrors. Sometimes he fills a shot glass with squeezy-cheese and bacon bits and eats it while he watches TV.”

Red gives Sans a wounded look. “Hey, you’ve been holding out on me.”

Papyrus sniffs. “Hardly. Now if you put chocolate chips in the squeezy-cheese, the flavor profile is much more sophisticated and-- hello, Lady Toriel!”

“Hello, Papyrus,” Toriel says, joining them beside the bus. She gives him the stern maternal look that can bring class clowns to their knees. “It might be hard to hear from out here, but I believe the school bell rang about five minutes ago?”

Papyrus’s face falls. “Oh. Yes. Well. My students are all very competent young adults, so I probably have at least ten minutes before they start any fires or resort to cannibalism!”

Toriel glances between him and Sans, then nods. There’s sympathy in her eyes. She runs a tight ship here at the school, even if it’s a ship that involves a lot of bad jokes and great pies, but she gets how hard it’s going to be for them to be hundreds of miles apart for the first time, even if Papyrus was the one to suggest it in the first place. Especially considering that it’s pretty public knowledge that Sans disappeared for three days without warning and came back wrong, even if people don’t know where he went or why. 

(Might be funny to hear what the rumor mill came up with in the absence of actual answers, but he can’t work up the energy to ask. It’s kinda tough to get a straight answer when you’re the one being gossiped about, and anybody who would tell him the truth would probably expect an honest explanation in return. It’s not worth that much to him.)

"I suppose a few more minutes won't hurt," Toriel says. "But we should get moving along soon in order to make it to the museum on time. We wouldn't want this trip to be a--” Toriel winks. “--_bus_t."

"Wow, consider me schooled," Sans says. “We better steer clear of that.”

Toriel laughs like she’s never heard a joke before. Edge looks slightly pained.

"I'm already going," Papyrus says with wounded dignity. "Torturing me with puns is unnecessary."

“I apologize, Papyrus,” Toriel says, not quite able to keep a straight face. “I suppose those puns were wheel-y bad.”

“It’s cruel and unusual punishment!” Papyrus says severely, but he’s smiling as she dissolves into laughter. Maybe that makes it a little easier when Papyrus sighs and bends down to wrap Sans up in a hug that’s just shy of painfully tight. “You had better not be wearing these same clothes when you come home tomorrow.”

Sans leans his brow against Papyrus’s shoulder and hugs him back, still awkwardly clutching the empty coffee cup. “Okay.”

Papyrus gently and affectionately thumps Sans on the ribs like he would the dog, then pulls away. Reluctantly. Which is probably for the best because Sans wasn’t going to be the first one to let go. Papyrus points a stern finger at him and continues, “And remember to eat something other than fried garbage!”

“Okay.”

“And sleep a reasonable amount of hours!”

“Okay.”

“And text me regular updates so I don’t worry that you’re dead in a ditch!”

“Okay.”

“And watch your mouth in front of the children!”

“Okay.”

“And…” Papyrus clears his throat, and Sans pretends not to see that he’s welling up. “And be _safe_, all right?”

“Okay,” Sans says, trying not to sound all soft and squishy and embarrass Papyrus at the place he works. “You too, buddy.”

“Don’t sweat it, Paps,” Red says, leaning against the bus and staring at them like he’s trying really hard not to accidentally make eye contact with Edge. “We’ll keep him out of trouble.”

That’s the biggest goddamn lie Sans has ever heard, and it’s got some serious competition. If Red doesn’t create trouble, he’s usually happy to wade into it up to his waist and drag Sans behind him. But Edge, who’s been looking staunchly across the schoolyard as if seeing a fraternal hug will burn his eyes out like staring directly at an eclipse, makes eye contact with Papyrus and nods. Papyrus seems to be able to translate that into something like _we won’t let Sans wander off into any other timelines and murder people_ because he relaxes a little, and his smile is genuine. “Thank you, Cherry! That helps a lot!”

It’s always hilarious to watch Red stumble face-first into the brick wall of Papyrus’s sincerity. Red blinks, and then gives a crooked grin that’s unusually gentle for him. He holds out a closed fist, and Papyrus bumps it with his own.

Trying to reckon with the wicked case of warm fuzzy feelings it gives him to see them getting along, Sans says, “Maybe you oughta go back sure your kids aren’t committing arson. I’ll text you when I get to the museum, okay?”

“Okay,” Papyrus echoes. He stands there for a moment, fiddling with his scarf, and then gives a decisive nod. His eyes are still suspiciously shiny, but he’ll be okay without Sans around. There was never really any question in Sans’s mind that Papyrus wouldn’t be. “And I’m sure it’s very mild arson. Probably.”

With that, Papyrus turns on his heel, marches back to the door of the school, and goes inside. The determined set of his shoulders and the way he doesn’t look back reminds Sans of Edge. His brother is a cool dude.

“Can you call shotgun on a bus?” Sans asks, turning back to Toriel, Red and Edge. That was probably a few too many seconds of staring after Papyrus like he was a dog in one of those emotionally manipulative charity commercials, but he’s gonna try to be casual about it anyway.

“Yes, and I’ve already called it,” Toriel says cheerfully. “A privilege of being the head of the school is that I get shotgun on principal.”

Sans snorts. Edge pinches the top of his nasal ridge, apparently only now realizing that he’s signed himself up for two days of Toriel and Sans punning at each other. “Would you just get on the bus, please?”

“Since you asked so nicely,” Sans says, grinning at him.

“He could ask nicer,” Red says. His expression is unnervingly innocent, like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. “He could say pretty please and everyth--”

“I _will_ strap you to the roof of this bus, brother,” Edge says through his teeth. “Don’t test me.”

“We’re at a school, boss,” Red says, all guileless eyes and shark-toothed grin. “Where else am I supposed to test you?”

Edge’s narrow-eyed glower could set Red on fire if he had any shame to burn. Laughing her great big, booming laugh, Toriel heads up the bus stairs. Sans follows her, shoving the coffee cup in his inventory to be thrown out whenever he happens to remember it’s there, which could be tomorrow or several months from now when he needs a slot for juiceboxes or duct tape.

Toriel did indeed call shotgun, taking the seat behind and to the right of the driver. It’s Barry, still in the same orange tracksuit he wore back in Snowdin. Sans gives him a wave in passing and keeps going, although he’s genuinely curious how Barry’s going to make a crowded school bus about politics. That’s a familiar enough from years of idle conversation to be downright nostalgic, and not a lot of Sans’s nostalgia comes without fish-hook barbs of things he doesn’t want to think about.

Before Sans can appraise the remaining seats, Frisk’s arm shoots up and they start waving like they’re trying to direct airport traffic. There’s really no way out of it, even if Sans was looking for one. He ambles over, hands in his pockets, and says, “You gotta pay extra for the window seat, kid. That’s 50g.”

They make a show of checking their pockets and then shrug.

“Tough luck,” Sans says. “Spent it all on blackjack and slots, huh?”

Frisk rolls their eyes and gets up to let him climb in the window seat. Sans settles in, letting them bump shoulders with him in a companionable sort of way. He looks out onto the splendor of the parking lot. “Wow, you’re missing a great view. You oughta try this seat sometime. It’s great.”

Frisk gives him a particularly unimpressed deadpan that Sans thinks they must’ve learned from Edge.

Speaking of, Edge and Red have climbed onto the bus, the doors closing behind them. Red rumples the kid’s hair in passing, and they give him the same withering look. Red grins and drops into the closest seat, about four rows back. A couple parents who are probably coming along to help wrangle kids overnight give him wary side-eye. Edge has endeared himself to the locals, but Red makes it a point to be as unlikeable as possible. There’s probably going to be some awkward conversations for Toriel later about why she’s letting Red tag along when he’s not technically part of the embassy security team. Good thing that’s not Sans’s problem.

Edge takes up a position in the very back of the bus. As he settles into what has to be an uncomfortable seat for such a tall dude, Edge gives Sans a brief nod and almost-smile. _Hello, Sans. Remember how wet your soul got last night?_ that look says. Sans coughs into his fist and averts his eyes before he starts to blush or something.

Whoops. Too late.

There’s a kid sitting next to Red, one of Catty’s siblings. Catti’s all done up in emo black only broken by gray stripes on her shirt, thick eyeliner under her eyes and a cellphone in her hand. She’s staring at Red like he’s going to do a trick. Red flicks a sidelong look at her, but he seems more amused than irritated.

Catti asks in a bored teenager monotone, “Are you really from another universe?”

Red shrugs.

Catti tilts her head to one side. “Did you really kill people?”

“Yep,” Red says. “Sure did. Ate ‘em, too.”

Catti studies him with much more interest. “You like Sabbath?”

Red narrows his eyes at her, a warning that would send hardened warriors diving under the nearest furniture to avoid the incoming sharpnel. Apparently she was supposed to draw the line at cannibalism. “Yeah. Who doesn’t like Sabbath?”

“Nerds,” Catti says.

One corner of Red’s mouth gives a reluctant twitch.

Welp, that’s either going to end in murder or Red acquiring a minion. Hard to tell which is the scarier outcome. Sans turns around and leaves them to it.

The bus lurches, fighting inertia to get a dozen tons of extremely vintage vehicle moving again. It picks up speed as they leave the parking lot, headed towards the highway. Sans lays his head back against the seat and closes his eyes to steal a nap, or at least an hour or so of quiet before the chaos of herding kids in a crowded museum full of people, miles from Papyrus, out of reach if something happens, and he’s not sure if that fear is for his brother or himself because ha, it’s not like Sans has ever been much use to Papyrus when the shit hits the fan--

It’s fine. It’ll be fine.

Frisk pokes him in the arm. When he doesn’t stir, they do it again. Grudgingly, Sans opens one eye and says, “What’s up?”

They sign, “The ceiling.”

“Nice,” Sans says. “You’re really perfecting the fine art of the uncle joke. Have you heard about bofa?”

“Red already told me that one,” Frisk signs. “And updog, and dickfor.”

Of course he did. Sans shrugs. “Welp, you’ve learned everything I know, kiddo. I have nothing left to teach. The student becomes the master. I can sleep in peace, secure in the knowledge that the next generation knows about updog.”

When he goes to close his eye again, Frisk pokes him almost immediately. He looks at them, and Frisk gives them the soulful eyes. They don’t point out that they’ve hardly seen Sans since he got back from his impromptu hell vacation, between Sans avoiding Asgore and him being too fucking involved in his own bullshit to drag himself over to Toriel’s house. They don’t need to. Their expression handily does the guilt trip for them.

Sans sighs and gives up on a nap. The things he does for this kid. “Why do skeletons like to play tic-tac-toe?”

“Why?” Frisk signs promptly.

“We’re XO-skeletons,” Sans says.

It’s an old joke, one that Papyrus has long since banned Sans from telling in their house. He might’ve told it to the kid before, but they laugh. Funny how in the last nine months, they’ve gone from an almost silent laugh, only their shoulders shaking to say that they’re amused, to loud enough to be heard. Toriel’s a good influence on them. Maybe one day they’ll have a great big laugh like their mom’s. Sans hopes he gets to see it.

“Tickled your funny bone, huh?” Sans asks. He has a feeling he’s being indulged, much like Frisk must’ve indulged Red with updog, bofa and dickfor; he doubts the kid didn’t see the punchline coming. 

“It was pretty humerus,” Frisk signs.

They bounce the conversational ball back and forth a while. Jokes are safe territory over the deeper, colder parts of their history, where the current could drag them both down. The kid has been boning up on their bad skeleton puns. Maybe they picked it up from their mom. Maybe it was from Papyrus, who comes up with better puns than Sans ever has even if he pretends to hate it.

Eventually, the kid meanders into talking about other stuff. They don’t need a lot of input from Sans and they don’t take it personally when Sans doesn’t have much to say but lousy jokes. He’s a low pressure audience. 

Frisk, the ambassador, the savior of monsters and humans, friend to everyone and everything, isn’t supposed to be bad at math because the numbers get mixed up in their head, or frustrated by stupid intolerant assholes who loudly hate Frisk’s family for political capital from other stupid intolerant assholes, or even just shit-scared that they’ll mess up now that they promised not to reset. Frisk isn’t supposed to be a screwed up kid who murdered people and flinches when anyone unexpectedly raises a hand towards their face.

Not that they talk with Sans about any of that shit. Sans isn’t really good at being there for people, and it’s damned hard to forget that they killed each other at least once and might do it again. But he knows they’re not perfect or even okay, and they know he knows, and that’s enough.

In the middle of a story about going with Alphys to help her choose a wedding dress and trying to rein in Mettaton before he dressed her in more taffeta than a fabric store in hell, Sans’s attention wanders. He glances out the bus window, and--

Gaster is there.

Black coat. White face. Black eyes. He’s several miles in the distance, on the side of the road, almost lost in the heat shimmering off the blacktop from an unseasonably warm day. Sans freezes like a rabbit as if that will save him, but they’re rushing to meet Gaster at highway speed, and he spreads his arms like he’s going to embrace them. Sans has one hand on the door into the void because all he can do is _run_, but he stops because he can't just leave them here to--

Then Sans’s eyes focus through the terror and the heat haze, and he sees the man’s face. He sees the sunburn. He sees the backpack on his shoulders, bulking him out, where Gaster is tall and narrow with arms that are slightly too long. He sees that the man isn’t reaching for them, he just has his thumb out. Sans has never seen it outside of movies, but the dumb fuck is trying to hitch a ride.

_Careful, buddy. Don’t you know there are monsters out here?_

They pass the man in black. As they do, Sans realizes that what he thought was Gaster’s long black coat is just a hoodie. The man flips them off as they drive by in one last moment of hilarity, and Sans has to choke back a laugh that rises in his throat like bile. His soul is cold as a block of ice in his chest, pounding like it's trying to escape without him.

Then the man just a shape in the rear view window, receding in the distance, going, gone. The fear drains out of Sans, leaving him limp and emptied out.

It was nothing. He doesn’t know how the fuck he mistook a human in a hoodie for Gaster, aside from bad nerves and paranoia. He's just tired and jumpy. Leaving Papyrus must’ve rattled him more than he thought.

There’s a gentle tap on his arm. He can’t quite not flinch, but he tries to school his expression into something casual as he looks at Frisk. Frisk raises their brows in an eloquent _what the fuck_ look, and he says, “Sorry, kiddo. Turns out skeletons can get carsick.”

They give him a truly skeptical look. He must be off his game if he can’t convincingly lie to an eleven year old. Admittedly, carsickness isn’t his best excuse when he doesn’t have a stomach. It was nice when he used to be able to pass off any amount of bullshit with a simple “because magic, that’s why,” but the kid has spent a little too much time around monsters to buy it.

Sans rubs a hand over his face, wiping off the fine coat of cold sweat. He tries to subtly glance over his shoulder to see if Edge and Red saw his stupid moment of panic. 

Red’s attention is thankfully elsewhere, scanning the road around for anything suspicious. Cars trailing too close, maybe, or people waiting for them at the side of the road with rocket launchers. There’s an earphone wedged into one of his acoustic meatus, the wire winding down to Catti’s cellphone, its twin in Catti’s ear. That seems like a good way to have to go digging things out of Red’s skull later, but whatever.

Edge is on his cellphone, frowning in a distracted sort of way. If Sans had to guess, Edge is calling Undyne to report how things are going. His eyes are on one of the parents, who’s staring at Red with her lip curled in delicate distaste like Red is dogshit on the bottom of her shoe. She doesn’t seem to notice that Edge looks tempted to toss her out the back of the bus.

Okay. Neither of them saw that little episode. Good. That’d be a whole string of embarrassing explanations, and the overprotective, paranoid assholes would probably decide his little mental glitch was an actual threat. This is why he tried so goddamn hard not to think about Gaster; it makes him feel raw and stirs up things that he prefers stay in his subconscious where he can ignore them, thanks.

(He was afraid that when he turned around, they wouldn’t be there.)

Frisk touches his shoulder, trying to catch his attention, and Sans grudgingly gives it to them. For a moment, Frisk just stares at him without saying anything, a furrow between their brows. It’s like they’re trying to mimic his face-reading thing. It’d be cute if it wasn’t so goddamn inconvenient.

“What’s going on?” Frisk signs.

“I told you,” Sans says. “You got any Tums or something? A mint?”

Their frown deepens. Then, all at once, they relax. Earnestly looking at him with eyes that are just a little too eager and a little too old, Frisk signs, “Whatever it is, I can help. You know I can.”

“Yeah,” Sans says, smiling, his voice too quiet for anyone else to hear. “You’ve helped us all plenty already, haven’t you?”

Frisk doesn’t quite flinch. The guilty look in their eyes sits uneasily with the resentful, stubborn line of their mouth. The two of them just look at each other for a long moment. (The judge stirs, hungry, and Sans ruthlessly shoves it back down.) Frisk is the first one to look away, their sullenness softening into something tired and resigned.

“Seriously, buddy,” Sans says. He’s not going to apologize, but he can ease up on them a little. They’re friends. Sort of. “We wouldn’t be up here if it wasn’t for you. You saved everybody. It was great. But you don’t gotta fix all our problems forever. Sometimes people need to do that stuff for themselves.”

Frisk gives him a sidelong look. They sign with particularly pointed precision, “Sometimes people forget to ask for help when they’re in trouble.”

“You sure wouldn’t know anything about that,” Sans says.

“Takes one to know one,” Frisk signs.

“Schoolyard philosophy, huh? I’ve always been a bigger fan of he who smelt it dealt it, but whatever floats your boat.” Frisk can’t quite hide a smile; he’s officially coaxed them out of their emo mood. Sans says, “It’s nothing, kid. Don’t worry about it.”

Frisk studies him, then signs, “Will you tell me if you need help?”

If things get desperate enough that they need Frisk’s help, it’ll probably be because Gaster killed them all and the kid needs to reset, in which case Sans will be a little too dead to ask for anything at all. But he shrugs and says, “Yeah,” because he knows it’s the only way out of this conversation.

“Do you promise?” Frisk signs, stubborn as a dog with a bone.

“Don’t push your luck,” Sans says.

Grudgingly, Frisk seems to accept that as the best they’re going to get. They settle back into their seat, abusing their tall person privilege that lets them actually put their feet on the floor, and sign, “Do you want to watch videos of people microwaving lava lamps?”

As far as olive branches go, that’s a pretty good one. Frisk appreciates the little things in life.

“Now _you’re_ gonna get carsick,” Sans says.

Frisk shrugs. They look unnervingly like him when they do that.

This seems like the kind of decision a responsible adult would discourage. Good thing Sans isn’t one. He shrugs in return, and the kid takes it as a yes. Frisk pulls out their phone.

Sans tries to keep his eyes on the screen, but his attention keeps wandering to the side of the road. His fingers drift to the collar on his wrist, rubbing the leather to feel its comforting warmth on his bones.

***

There’s only one motherfucking bed.

Sans stares at the single king-size bed that takes up a good chunk of the hotel room, and then at the hot tub shoved in one corner, and then at Red. He’s experiencing a complicated emotion right now, and damned if he can put a finger on exactly what it is.

Certainty might be the word. Sans knew in his bones before they even got the door open that there was only going to be one bed, because of fucking course there was. It’d be like getting pissed at gravity. If anything, Sans wants to laugh, like bubbles escaping from a shaken up soda can, all that pent up nervousness and last night’s longing and a lingering spike of fear from that weird moment on the bus. Which makes for a shitty cocktail. He prefers his hysterical laughter straight, maybe over ice when he’s feeling fancy.

“Brother,” Edge says into the silence, his voice deceptively light. “I’m going to kill you.”

Okay, apparently Edge doesn’t have the same kind of internal conflict going on.

Red puts his hands up. To his credit, he seems genuinely thrown. “Whoa, whoa. I didn’t do this.”

“Oh, of course not,” Edge says, his tone withering.

“I didn’t!” Red snaps. “Sansy said two beds, so I got two beds, not this bullshit.”

Sans did tell Red that, now that he thinks about it. He didn’t actually expect Red to listen to him. He probably should’ve. Red has certain rules he plays by, and he wasn’t going to outright ignore a hard no to get Sans in Edge’s bed even if it was just to sleep. Funny to think the word honorable when it comes to Red, but...

With a sidelong glance at Red’s expression to confirm what he already knows, like a walking lie detector who also tells jokes and gives great blowjobs, Sans says to Edge, “He’s right. It wasn’t him for once.”

“Toldja so, jackass,” Red says to his brother.

With Red off the hook, Edge gives the bed a look that should reduce it to dust, as if it’s responsible for this situation, then turns on his heel and goes to the room phone. 

“Oh, brother,” Red says, mimicking Edge’s speak patterns with eerie accuracy even if it’s in a falsetto. He sounds weird when he drops the Hotland accent. “I’m soooo sorry for doubting you. You see, I’ve got this stick up my ass, and it makes me really tetchy--”

Edge flips him off without looking up, dialing like he has a personal vendetta against phones in general. When someone actually answers, Edge’s voice is tightly controlled and perfectly polite. “Yes, we have a problem. This isn’t the right room. There’s supposed to be two beds.”

They’re just supposed to be dropping off luggage before heading to the museum, a concession to those of them who can’t keep stuff in inventories, but this seems like it’ll take a few minutes. As the front desk manager says something in an inaudible murmur, Sans wanders over to the hot tub. It’s not shaped like a champagne glass; this must be a classy joint. It barely looks big enough for two very short people. No way Edge is fitting more than his legs in it, although the thought of him folded up like origami is pretty funny. 

Red comes up behind him, standing too close in Sans’s personal space, and asks in an undertone, “You’re thinking so hard I can smell the smoke, sweetheart. Care to share with the rest of the class?”

Sans turns around and kisses Red, quick and relatively chaste. It catches Red off guard; he huffs out a surprised breath against Sans’s mouth, grasping Sans by the jacket. Before he can try to deepen it, Sans dodges sideways, out of reach, and definitely doesn’t glance at Edge to see if he appreciated the show.

“I was wondering how many people fucked in that hot tub,” Sans says.

“A lot,” Red says, studying Sans like he’s a locked safe that could be full of either explosives or excellent weed. Both are fun as far as Red is concerned. He grins. “Two more by the time we leave. Three if you play your cards right.”

“I see,” Edge says to the front desk manager, tension running through the single word. “No, that’s fine. I appreciate your assistance.”

He hangs up on that neat sidestep around the words _thank you_, staring into the middle distance, and then rubs his brow. Tiredly, Edge says, “They don’t have another room on this floor. I need to be near Frisk. If you’d like to book another room, Sans, my brother could stay with--”

Sans pulls his duffel bag out of his inventory and tosses it onto the bed. Casually, he says, “Sweet. Always wanted to try a hot tub.”

Edge has been in his head; he’s seen Red and Sans fuck in glorious first-person. Sharing a hotel room or… anything else isn’t going to cross any lines that haven’t already been crossed and crossed again until it’s a cat’s cradle of interpersonal clusterfucks. So long as they don’t, y’know, touch.

Boy howdy, he’s getting a lot of mileage out of that excuse.

(This situation just fell in his lap, and he has someone else to blame. He doesn’t have to admit how much he wants it.)

“I can sleep on the couch,” Edge says, watching Sans like he’s expecting Sans to make a sudden 180 back towards sanity (good luck with that) but doesn’t really want him to.

On cue, they all look at the couch, which is about a foot shorter than Edge is tall. Red snorts. “You were still in stripes the last time you could fit on that couch, boss.”

“It pulls out,” Edge says defensively. Fuck, that shouldn’t strike Sans as adorable, but it does. “I’ll take the floor, if need be. I don’t sleep much.”

That logic is completely sound, but Sans says, “Yeah, I know, but--”

“Figure it out later,” Red says impatiently, tossing his own bag haphazardly at the bed. He grabs Sans by the jacket and tugs him towards the door. His eyelights are bright and eager. “We gotta go herd some brats around a museum.”

“We?” Sans asks. “I thought you were gonna wander by yourself, like an emo lone wolf.”

“I needed some excuse to tag along, didn’t I?” Red demands. “Toriel figures I got a Master’s degree just like you. I can teach some rugrats no problem.”

“Toriel?” Edge says.

It’s not a rebuke, just surprise, but Red’s gaze immediately darts sideways and his shoulders very subtly hunch. “She’s the queen. When she tells me to call her something, I ain’t gonna say no.”

Speaking of defensive. It doesn’t seem like the time to point out that Asgore’s invited Red many, many, _many_ times to drop the formality, which just encourages Red to get extra polite to spite him. Then again, Red’s history with his Toriel is probably a little less loaded.

“You just want an excuse to terrorize some poor museum employee,” Sans says.

“Nah,” Red says. “Can’t have you leading the kids astray, that’s all. Fuck only knows what you’ll tell them. I’m just thinking of their education.”

It’s a transparent dig. Shame it’s working. Sans narrows his eyes. “Uh-huh.”

Grin widening, Red says, “I mean, what if they need to build an entropy engine?”

“Ohhh,” Sans says, feeling his own grin sharpen at the low blow. It’d actually sting if Red had figured out the photon conversion array and gotten the machine working without Sans’s notes, but as it stands, it’s about as friendly as Red’s shit-talking gets. “Okay. It’s gonna be like that, huh?”

“It sure is,” Red says.

“If you two are done with your foreplay, we should be going,” Edge says, his tone not quite dry enough to distract from the soft look in his eyes. He herds them towards the door. “Try to keep it G-rated in front of the children.”

Sans can’t tell if that’s a warning to watch their language or telling them not to snap and start tearing each other’s clothes off in the Skylab while they angrily make out. Either way, Red says, “No promises.”

“We’ll save it for the hot tub,” Sans says. He’s not expecting Edge to almost trip over his own feet and then stare at him with surprised heat in his eyes. Red snickers, and Sans gives Edge a cautious grin. “Careful there, edgelord. I know this is supposed to be a school trip and everything, but--”

“You’re a menace,” Edge says with terrible fondness. Then again, considering the way Sans says _edgelord_ these days, he can’t exactly throw stones on anybody’s choice of endearments. “Keep moving.”

Sans does. His grin is still genuine when they meet up with Toriel and the kids, and there’s nothing more complicated on his mind than the promising warmth in Edge’s eyes and the single bed, waiting for tonight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: Papyrus and Sans have anxiety about leaving each other; references to child abuse (including the implication that Frisk was abused in the past); Sans's complicated relationship with Frisk and references to the genocide route; Sans thinks he sees Gaster and has a very quiet panic attack.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> detailed content warnings in endnotes

The hotel is close to the Air and Space Museum. Too close to drive. Sans would give a kidney to have his shortcuts back, although that plan is complicated by the fact that he doesn’t have organs and would have to harvest one or something, which is at least a big of a pain in the ass as walking about a mile and a half. 

Red doesn’t shortcut ahead. Probably doesn’t want to leave so many of his people alone in unfamiliar territory. The tension in his body visibly ratchets tighter as he sees how much more populated DC is compared to both the hellhole that he came from and the little town around the embassy. It’s a lot of unfamiliar, potentially dangerous humans to deal with. Red keeps subtly crowding Frisk to get them closer to the inside of the group, which explains where Edge might’ve learned up some of his border collie habits.

(Meanwhile Edge seems fine with the situation. Maybe because he’s used to the bodyguard thing, seeing as it’s his job. Maybe just because he’s less skittish than Red in general.)

When Red tries to herd Sans to a safer position, Sans gives him a deadpan look and holds his ground. Red narrows his eyes at him. Sans grins mildly back. After a long moment, Red gives a quiet _heh_, jostles Sans with his shoulder, and falls back to a position that’ll let him cover Edge in case anything goes down. Judging from the way Edge gives him an assessing look and then leaves him be, he’s aware that Red’s nerves are strung tight but he’s not particularly concerned at the moment. Fair enough.

Luckily, nothing interesting goes down. Not any more interesting than a whispered conversation between Toriel and the mother who was giving Red the stinkeye earlier, anyway. Apparently her partner works at the embassy, and Red made a less than endearing impression on the locals because he’s an asshole like that. Sans just catches snatches of words: _inappropriate_ and _dangerous_, which are Red’s middle names, and _totally unqualified_, which really isn’t. Sans can’t hear much of Toriel’s response, just the regal ice in her tone, but the woman seems far from happy about it. Then her kid whispers harshly, “Mom, just drop it, okay? Jeez! You always do this!”

That neatly derails the argument so the woman can try to reason with her daughter instead. Sans cranes his head back to look at Toriel, who looks tired and aggravated but offers him a tight smile anyway. He shrugs in a sympathetic sort of way, and her smile softens into something slightly more genuine. He slows a little so he can walk alongside her.

“I believe I owe you an apology, my friend,” Toriel says in a voice not designed to carry. “I was under the impression that Red told you about his plan to help with the tour before he suggested it to me. I don’t mean to imply that you--”

“It’s all good, Tori. Means I only have to do half the work.” Twice the work, more likely, but whatever. Sans grins at her. “Didn’t know you and Red were buds.”

“He’s good company for a lonely old woman,” Toriel says archly.

“A lonely old woman with half the neighborhood kids in and out of her kitchen,” Sans says.

“And that is truly wonderful,” Toriel agrees, a soft, wistful look in her eyes. She’s been alone for too many years of her very long life, and it’s gonna be a while before she starts taking friendly company for granted. “But I’m afraid they don’t have your Sans of humor.”

“Heh. Nice one.” Sans considers leaving it at that. Almost does. But he’s never been able to say no to her, for better or worse. “Been kinda busy lately. I’ll try to swing by more often. ‘Specially if there’s pie.”

“That can be arranged,” Toriel says. They walk in companionable silence for a moment before she adds, “You look better.”

“The surface is great,” Sans says. Better to pretend she’s not talking about his impromptu vacation. “I think everybody’s happier up here.”

“Yes,” Toriel says. There’s a glint in her eyes. “But I think spending so much time with Red agrees with you.”

“Uh,” Sans says. “I guess. He’s so obnoxious it makes everything else seem better by comparison. Y’know how after you hit your thumb with a hammer, you forget you had a headache? He’s like that.”

“Of course,” Toriel says, smiling. “I understand completely.”

The terrifying thing is he thinks she does.

When they get to the museum, there’s not much of a line outside. Just a few other school tour groups milling around on the steps. As they loiter on the sidewalk, Toriel whips out her teacher voice and says, “Just a moment before we go in. You remember our discussion in case about the importance of staying with the group, do you not?”

There’s a chorus of _yes_.

“Very good. And if you need to use the bathroom--” One of the monster children snicker, and Toriel gives them a Look before continuing, “you should tell one of the adults and they can go with you. No using magic without permission, and absolutely no battles. Any encounters can wait until we get back to the hotel. Some humans are rather… uncomfortable… around such things.”

And uncomfortable humans tend to get violent. Everyone knows it, judging from the sudden hush that falls over the kids. Frisk’s face is closed down tight, and their gaze is fixed on the ground so they won’t meet anybody’s eyes.

“Hey, kid,” Sans says under his breath as Toriel continues. Frisk glances up at him, ready to flinch when he twists the knife, and Sans offers them a grin. “Y’know, I hear that this place has an exhibit about black holes, but it really sucks.”

Frisk smiles.

The warm and fluffy moment is broken by Toriel saying the horrifying combo of words, “-- Mr. Sans.”

Sans swivels to look at her fast enough to give himself whiplash. “Uh, what?”

“I was saying,” Toriel says, the smile of a natural born troll tugging at her mouth, “most of you know Mr. Sans, after the science fair demonstration.” 

Funny. Most people call it the science fair incident. One word switched around and it almost sounds reputable, not like the fire department had to be called.

“He’ll be leading the tour of the museum along with the assistant curator and Mr. Red,” Toriel continues, still with that mischievous look in her eyes. It takes a lot of nerve to aim mischief at Red. Must’ve been a very interesting conversation she and Red had over that bottle of grief wine.

Red makes a distinctly choked noise. When Sans turns to look at him, his opinion of the whole mister thing does a sharp 180 because holy fuck, that look on Red’s face is hilarious. Edge isn’t bothering to hide his malicious fraternal delight.

“Hey, kids,” Sans says, grinning fit to break his face. “You should definitely call him that. A lot. Say hi, Mr. Red.”

Red gives him a look that says he’ll pay for that later, then tells the collection of preteens, “Sup. I’m your science overlord now. Listen to Toriel and don’t do anything stupid.”

There’s no threat, no _or else_, but there doesn’t have to be. The look in Red’s eyes makes it crystal clear that whoever ignores him is going to be very, very sorry in some nebulous yet terrifying way. Any brewing mutiny dies in its cradle. Edge looks like he’s trying not to smile, like he’s heard that tone so many times before it’s downright nostalgic.

Toriel gives Red a sidelong look like she’s not sure whether she approves of his methods, but she seems reassured by the results. She says, “The last rule is that you have fun, young ones, and I’m sure you will. I will be here if you need anything, of course. Let me know if the tour has you too... starry-eyed!”

Sans laughs. At the back of the group, Edge pinches the top of his nasal ridge like he already has a headache.

There’s a tense moment as they go through the metal detector and one of the security guards wants to do the wavey wand thing to Edge as a ‘random screening’, but no blood gets spilled even if Red watches their every move from the minimum possible distance with a lazy grin that makes the unlucky security guard sweat and stutter. 

Edge seems amused. Of course, that’s probably because Catti is standing right beside Red the whole time, trying to perfect her coolest glower. When it’s over, Red glances at her sidelong. He murmurs something. Catti considers, then curls her lip to sneer at the security guard, showing a hint of fang. Red nods his approval and moves away. 

When there are no adults looking, at least not any responsible ones, Catti gives the guard’s back the finger. When Sans snorts, she looks at him with a mix of defiance and wariness, probably worried he’s going to narc on her. He gives her a conspiratory wink instead, and she blinks before giving him a brief, almost shy smile.

Then they’re out in the main atrium. The space opens up, ceilings stretching high above them. It’s been months since Sans came here with the kid, and he only lasted about ten minutes in a Saturday afternoon crowd before having to step outside for a cigarette and a mild panic attack, but he remembers doing exactly what Red does now: lurching to a hard stop when he sees the lunar module and just _staring_.

The kids are getting name tags and a map of the museum from the front desk, which is gonna take a minute between the chaos of making sure everyone gets one and Frisk immediately trying to befriend the person behind the desk. Edge gives Red’s shoulder a push, urging him towards the lunar module. It’s about as gentle as Red will usually tolerate, which means it staggers Red forward a step. When Red turns to glower at him, Edge says dryly, “Go on. Get it out of your system. You’ll be useless otherwise.”

Red stares at him. Edge stares back, the line of his mouth almost managing to look stern instead of fond. Then Red just goes, arrowing through the mid-day crowd like a dart towards the bullseye. Sans grins at Edge and follows at a less hurried pace.

When he catches up, he finds Red leaning against the guardrail, gripping it in his hands as he stares up at the lunar module. His eyelights are bright with an uncomplicated happiness. The sight of him makes Sans’s soul squeeze hard in his chest. 

Red drums his fingers on the guardrail, bone clicking against metal. After a long few moments of staring, he says without taking his eyes off the lunar module, “It’s not the one that was actually on the moon.”

“Nope,” Sans agrees, leaning against the rail beside him. “A replica of it, though. Same basic model.”

“Yeah.” Red studies the module, devouring every single detail. “No magic. Just some metal and plastic and a fancy suit between you and the vacuum of space. A couple hundred thousand miles from help in case things went wrong. Humans are crazy.”

A woman says brightly from beside Sans, “We certainly are!”

It’s a good thing that she decided to stand by Sans and not Red, or she definitely would’ve gotten shanked. She almost does anyway, but Sans catches Red’s wrist. The woman, a human in slightly rumpled office wear with a Smithsonian employee ID badge identifying her as Fern, gives a blink of mild surprise but doesn’t look particularly offended.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I’m Fern, an assistant curator here. I’ll be giving you that tour of the new exhibit.”

“Greetings,” Toriel says, finally joining them. The kids have been herded back into a little cluster, all of them counted and name-tagged. Toriel would probably put one of those tracking devices biologists use for sharks on every single one of them if she could get away with it. 

Edge glances at Sans’s hand still wrapped around Red’s wrist, and Sans remembers to let go. Surprisingly, Red doesn’t bite him for getting grabby, just gives him a heavy-lidded, amused look. To most people, it’d look like a murder about to happen. To Sans, it’s unfortunately hot. Sans decides to look somewhere safer.

Toriel extends her hand to Fern for a handshake, as regal and self-possessed as the queen she used to be. “I’m Toriel. We spoke on the phone, did we not?”

“We sure did,” Fern says cheerfully. She doesn’t seem to have a non-cheerful mode. 

She reaches out to shake Toriel’s hand, and Sans realizes for the first time that her right hand is a prosthetic. It’s gunmetal gray, the same color as parts of Mettaton’s chassis, and the joints move with the fluidity of magic. One of Alphys’s designs; Sans could recognize her work from a mile away. He’s pretty sure now whose idea it was to offer them this invite and why it’s an assistant curator walking them around without a trace of resentment for being asked to do a docent’s job. 

“It’s nice to finally meet you in person,” Fern continues. She looks past Toriel at Frisk. “You too, Ambassador.”

Frisk gives her fingerguns and a flirty wink, which would probably be devastatingly effective if they weren’t, y’know, eleven. They waggle their brows for good measure. If they didn’t learn that move from Red, Sans will eat one of his own sneakers.

(Poor kid. Red’s flirting techniques should come with a disclaimer that they only work on horny dumbasses with no self-preservation.)

“Anyway,” Fern says, turning to the rest of the group. “Are you guys ready to start the tour? I can’t wait to show you what we’ve got!”

Wow, that’s a whole lot of sincerity. Red gives her an assessing look, like a wolf deciding whether this deer would put up too much of a fight to bother trying to eat her, and Fern’s smile gets even wider. The only way Sans could describe that smile is that it’s obnoxiously, spitefully perky. Sans recognizes that particular expression from Papyrus. It means _I’m being nice right now because I’m a nice person, but just try me, motherfucker. I dare you_.

Seeing as Papyrus directed that look at Red more than once in the very beginning, Red must recognize it now. Red’s grin sharpens.

Sans was wrong earlier when he said this would be twice the work now that Red was helping him out. His estimate should’ve been way higher. But damned if it’s not going to be hilarious.

***

Two hours into what was supposed to be a ninety minute tour, they finally get to the part where the kids can roam free-range to poke at the interactive displays in the new exhibit. Which the kids are probably grateful for, seeing as it saves them from the argument / lecture / impromptu comedy routine that is Fern, Red and Sans gesticulating wildly and nerding the fuck out at each other.

“-- if NASA wasn’t so stuck in the f-- in the stone ages and would just use magic in their engines, somebody could be on Mars right now,” Red says.

“Unfortunately those kinds of engines, y’know, open wormholes if their casing is ruptured,” Fern says. “And the metal casings we always used for space travel are built to be light, mostly. The g-force that comes with a wormhole opening is a _lot_ stronger than a shuttle taking off. We can’t even do testing. It’d be wildly irresponsible to try to build that kind of engine if we couldn’t contain what would happen if we screwed up.”

Idly pushing buttons on the interactive display that shows the difference in force generated by a lithium battery and a magic-powered one, Sans pretends that he didn’t try to build an entropy engine in his basement lab. Because that would be wrong. He notes, “Could always put up shielding. Charge it with intent to contain any magical backlash and boom. Or, well, lack of boom. That’s what we had in the Lab back in the underground. ‘Course, whether it actually works or not is kinda theoretical, seeing as we never had any accidents.”

“Could be fun to test,” Red says with a slightly dreamy expression.

“No,” Edge says from where he’s lurking several feet away. He must be barely in earshot, but he sure as fuck came to attention at the words _fun_ and _test_ coming out of Red’s mouth. After years of living with Red, apparently his mayhem radar is keenly honed. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about, but absolutely not.”

“Killjoy,” Red mutters.

“Magically charged material is pricey, though,” Fern sighs. “NASA doesn’t have that kind of funding anymore, and the government’s weird about giving contracts to monsters. Which is just ridiculous prejudice with no basis in--”

A cellphone trills in Fern’s pocket. Fern derails mid-rant and pulls out her phone, blinking at the screen in alarm. “Shoot, is it really that late? I lost track of time. I have to get back to my office.”

“I thank you again for all your help,” Toriel says, smoothly cutting in. Sans kind of forgot she was standing there, listening in even as she watches the kids to be sure nobody does anything stupid.

“Oh, thanks!” Fern says with a distracted smile. “I don’t usually do this. I hope it wasn’t too boring for the kids.”

“Certainly not,” Toriel says. “It’s hard not to be entertained by such enthusiasm. We may have to do this with the three of you every year. I’d hate for the other children to miss out.”

Sans gives her a sidelong look. Toriel’s confidence that she can get him to volunteer for more work doesn’t falter, because she isn’t afraid to bribe him with puns and pies until he crumples like an empty soda can.

Not that it’s going to take much pressure. His face aches from grinning like an idiot for the last two hours, and he hasn’t talked this much or this enthusiastically in months. Fern is a great foil for the way he thinks, reminding him of Alphys and Papyrus both, and Red… 

Red is _sharp_, demanding, brilliant. He pokes and prods Sans to keep him from getting complacent, but stops mid-stream to clarify when he sees that one of the kids is lost. He’s blunt but surprisingly patient with them, as weird as it is to think of Red as being patient about anything. It’s like watching some big, murderous cat tolerantly let his cubs pounce on him and chew on his tail.

(Red talking science is unbearably hot. Red arguing science with him is even hotter. If they didn’t have kids with them, Sans would find a storage closet and drag Red into it. He’s got some seriously bad ideas, and from the way he keeps catching Red staring hungrily at him, Red would be more than happy to help with that.)

“Oh, definitely!” Fern says, delighted. She produces a few battered business cards from one of her pockets and offers them to three of them. “Email me to figure out the details. Or to just talk about space stuff. I haven’t had this much fun in a long time.”

Sans and Toriel both take the card. Red, whose idea of fun usually involves either blood on the walls or bed-breaking sex, stares at it for a long moment before taking it and disappearing it into his inventory. Noncommittally, he says, “Guess I gotta. You’re still wrong about Pluto.”

Sans rolls his eyes. “That’s just sentiment talking and you know it. It’s not a f-- frigging planet by the IAU criteria. Get over it.”

“The IAU criteria can bite my--” Red catches the stern look Toriel gives him and gives her a level stare back before saying pointedly, “-- butt.”

Toriel raises a brow that says he’s on thin goddamn ice. Red grins.

Fern flaps a hand at Red. “We’ll talk about how wrong you are later. I’ve got to go.” She raises her voice so the kids can hear. “It was nice to meet you guys!”

Red grunts because he’s an emotional cactus. Sans gives her a lazy wave. The kids manage a haphazard litany of _bye_ and _thank you_. Fern exits stage left with a bunch of weird stories to tell her coworkers and a new extremely stabby science penpal who’d probably murder someone for her if she asked.

Toriel raises her voice and says to the kids, "All right, young ones, gather around."

They do with nary a flinch at being called ‘young ones’, which is impressive from a bunch of preteens. Maybe they’re used to it by now. Edge trails behind to make sure no one gets any ideas about slipping away into the crowd to go save a new species or something. (And by no one, Sans definitely means Frisk.) The human woman who wasn't thrilled about Red is there too, looking at him with grudging respect in her eyes. Good. Red might be a bastard, but unqualified? Fuck that.

"Ms. Fern kindly gave us all tickets to the planetarium show," Toriel says. "We're going to do that first, and then lunch at the Natural History Museum. Does anyone need a quick snack or a juicebox before we go on? I wouldn't want anyone to feel faint, and I know learning can work up quite an appetite."

The verdict is that no, everyone is good to go. So Toriel distributes tickets, and they all take the escalator up to the planetarium. Sans ends up towards the back of the herd, one step up from Edge, which puts them about face to face (barely) because Edge is ridiculously tall and wears boots with a heel to add insult to injury.

"Hey, edgelord," Sans says quietly. "How's bodyguard duty going?"

"There have been no explosions and none of the children have been picked off by wild dogs, so it can't be going too badly," Edge says. "That was well done. The tour, I mean."

"Yeah?" Sans asks, flattered despite himself. "Thanks. I mean, space is cool, so it's hard to screw that up. Probably bored some of the kids into swearing off the hard sciences forever, but you can't win 'em all."

"On the contrary," Edge says. His eyelights burn, his gaze drifting down to rest on Sans's mouth. "I found it very entertaining."

Oh. Well, then. Apparently Sans isn't the only one whose crank gets turned by people nerding out. He swallows hard. "Heh. I can tell you more back at the hotel. Some supplementary material. If you're interested."

Edge smiles, slow and hot. Sans's grip tightens involuntarily on the rail. And then Red calls, "Watch where you're going or you're gonna eat escalator, Sansy."

Sans jerks back to attention just in time to avoid tripping over the place where the escalator ends. He recovers and manages to continue without a hitch. Red smirks at him from where he’s standing by the planetarium ticket booth with his minion by his side, and with the patience of a saint, Sans somehow manages to resist the urge to flip him off. 

Edge's hand rests briefly on his shoulder, there and gone, and Sans glances up to find Edge giving him an almost-smile. Edge murmurs, "Careful now.”

Too late. Sans already fell for him.

With a crooked grin, Sans spares Edge the painfully honest pun. They join the rest of the group at the ticket booth, hand over their tickets, and then head inside the planetarium.

Red’s expression slams shut the second they get inside and he sees the seats, which are crowded together and molded into a reclining position to make it easier on everyone’s necks. No easy way to keep an eye on anyone coming up behind you. Sans didn’t even think about how vulnerable that position is, but looking at them now, having been to Red’s universe and having seen the intricate map of scars written across Red’s bones, he’s not surprised when Red says flatly, “Yeah, that ain’t happening.”

It’d be easy to say that Edge is going to be right there, watching everyone’s backs. That it’s safer in this universe. That Red can definitely murder someone from a reclining position if he had to. Easy to say, sure, but cheap and patronizing.

Sans says, “Yeah, it’s not great. Figure I’ll stand against the back wall instead. Y’wanna join me?”

Red narrows his eyes, ready to be furious if he finds any pity or even sympathy in Sans’s expression. Sans looks back at him, unblinking, until Red grudgingly subsides. “That’s stupid. It’ll kill your neck. I c’n just wait outside.”

“If stargazing on my roof hasn’t killed my neck yet, twenty minutes in a planetarium isn’t going to,” Sans says.

“You can make yourself useful this way,” Edge says, the words carefully stripped of anything like warmth. “Guard the entrance. I’ll guard the exit.”

Red gives Edge a searing look that says he goddamn well knows he’s being handled and he’ll make Edge pay for it later, one way or another. Then he shoves his hands in his pockets and goes to slouch against the wall by the entrance.

Catti follows before Sans can decide whether to try to warn her off. Dropping into the seat closest to Red, she pulls out her cellphone and continues doing whatever kids do on the Internet these days. Frisk goes with her, which means Toriel and the rest of the class comes too. It’s kinda hard on Red’s whole brooding lone wolf act when he has a herd of preteens following him around like ducklings and he doesn’t do anything more threatening than glare at the back of their heads.

Sans joins Red, propping his back against the wall. They’re not quite close enough to touch. Under his breath, Red says, “It’s not a big deal.”

“Didn’t say it was,” Sans says.

Red grunts and settles a little more deeply into his slouch. “Don’t come crying to me if your spine hurts later.”

“Figured that’s what the hot tub is for,” Sans says. 

That momentarily gets Red out of his sulk. Too quietly for the kids to hear, Red purrs, “It’s for a lot of things, sweetheart.”

The lights pulse on and off, a warning for everyone to get in their seats and shut up before the show starts. Edge is settling into position at the other end of the row, putting himself between the kids and anything that comes through that door. He crosses his arms, the very picture of a humorless bodyguard. Then he ruins it by glancing sidelong at Sans and Red, the stern line of his mouth gentling a little. Sans winks at him, and Edge inclines his head in a gravely serious nod. What a dork.

Red is tense beside him, but not in any particularly murdery way. He’s nearly vibrating with anticipation, his fingers tapping against the wall despite the neutral grin on his face. When the planetarium goes full dark, Red stands up just a little straighter. Because this is definitely not a big deal to him at all.

The music kicks in, and the ceiling above them fills with stars. They’re bright and crystal clear, like they were recorded in a world without clouds or light pollution. Red stares up at them with the stars reflected in his eyes and a grin on his face that’s almost soft. (Almost. It’s still Red, after all.) It’s like the first night Sans let Red borrow his telescope; even though he didn’t trust or like Red back then, it was damned hard to outright hate someone who looked at the night sky with that much naked wonder. And now...

Yeah. Well. A lot of things have changed.

The view overhead changes, the camera sweeping dramatically from the night sky to a recreation of satellite images of the Horsehead Nebula. Red grabs Sans’s arm like he can’t help it, he needs someone to look at this with him and understand how cool this is, and Sans grins. Good thing it’s dark and no one’s looking or it’d ruin both their reputations.

He looks at the ceiling. Watches the show. Feels Red’s fingers slide down his arm to grasp his wrist, thumb rubbing gently against the inside of Sans’s ulna like Red isn’t quite aware he’s doing it. It’s nice. 

Which is why it takes several minutes for Sans to realize that he’s being watched.

It’s nothing. This is probably the first time a lot of the humans here have ever seen a monster in person, and he, Red and Edge are basically walking Halloween decorations to them. Reminders of their mortality. A little gawking is understandable, even if most people try to be more polite about it. Sooner or later they’ll get distracted by the universe spinning above their head. Sans isn’t that interesting.

But he can still feel it as the seconds tick into minutes. The pressure of their stare feels like being clinically peeled apart layer by layer and examined beneath the merciless light of a microscope. It reminds him of--

No. That’s stupid. It’s just the same paranoia that had him panicking over a hitchhiker in a black hoodie. Gaster is stuck in the void. Sans is wide awake, he’s in the collar, he’s _safe_. Edge is right there, watching over them, and he damned well would have noticed if there was a skeleton dripping void jizz onto the floor. Sans is jumping at shadows.

But he’s still being watched.

Fine. Fuck it. If being caught staring isn’t enough to make them knock it off, he can always do the spooky black-eyed stare. He refuses to be creeped out by what’ll turn out to be a curious five year old or something. He looks.

Everyone is staring up at the ceiling, but Gaster is staring straight at him. He is motionless in a living, breathing world. White face, black eyes. Blank expression. Sans recognizes that look. Gaster is absolutely fucking furious.

Helplessly, Sans searches for some detail that will let him tell himself that this is another trick of the eyes. There’s nothing. No obscuring heat haze, no backpack on his shoulders, no sunburn, no hood on his long black coat. Gaster could have walked straight out of the void and simply waited for Sans to be stupid enough to come to him.

They stare at each other, the world revolving around them. Red is right next to him, but Sans is alone. He’s taken a step sideways into a world where it’s only him and Gaster. He can’t blink. He can’t call for help. He can’t even breathe.

Gaster takes a step towards him. It feels inevitable. Sans doesn’t flinch. One step, another, and Gaster draws closer, walking past the front row. No one seems to notice him. They look right through him. He’s nothing. In this moment, Sans thinks he might be nothing too. He’s so tense he’s trembling, a dull pain building behind his eyes and pulsing in time with his hammering soul, but Red doesn’t seem to notice. Red would notice if Sans was shaking, wouldn’t he? He’d notice if Sans was gone.

With the slow dread of a nightmare, Sans watches Gaster come to him. Edge is at Sans’s back, out of reach, but Red is right beside him. Sans’s bones feel numb and distant, and it takes a monumental amount of effort to slowly, painfully turn a little and put his body between them and Gaster. It’s pointless. Stupid. It’s not going to change a goddamn thing. He does it anyway.

(Red’s grip on his wrist feels like the only thing mooring Sans to the world.)

Every deliberate step Gaster takes makes the pain in Sans’s head worse. By the time Gaster is within reach, it feels like something in his skull is going to burst out of his sockets, a crushing pressure against his eyelights. The false stars spin dizzily above him in a nauseating twirl, and Sans can barely focus on Gaster’s face. His vision is blurring, darkness crowding in on the edges. He waits for Gaster to drive his hand through his ribs and grasp his soul because this has to be a nightmare, just a nightmare, and that’s the only way this is going to end.

Through the gathering darkness, he thinks he sees Gaster smile.

Then Gaster turns away from him. He walks down the aisle, taking the pain with him, and opens the door leading out of the planetarium. Light spills in, illuminating his face. The pale skin and shaved head. The dark eyes, lined heavily in black eyeliner. The metal wallet chain, previously concealed by his long black coat. The cherry-red combat boots.

The door closes. It’s full dark inside the planetarium. The narrator is enthusing about dark matter. Sans stares after the goth kid that just took five years off his goddamn life. His head still hurts like a motherfucker, and his soul feels several degrees colder than the rest of him. He can’t make himself stop shivering, and he’s not surprised when Red murmurs against the side of his skull, “Hey. You good?”

Sans swallows a few times, trying to summon the appropriately glib words to say that he’s fine, and then just nods instead. He forces his unsteady knees to lock, pressing back harder against the wall to stay upright. The lightshow above them makes the pain in his head throb like an infected wound, but he’s fine. It’ll pass.

Of course, he’s about two seconds from hurling on the floor, which is less than ideal.

“Just need a sec,” Sans whispers, hitches his thumb at the exit and stumbles out. He somehow manages not to faceplant before he reaches the bench outside the planetarium and drops onto it. He can see the goth kid standing outside the gift shop, thumbing through the display of different flavors of astronaut ice cream with enthusiasm thinly papered over by affected _I’m way too cool for this_ disdain.

Yeah. Clearly he’s terrifying.

Sans closes his eyes. He can recognize the heavy tread of Red’s boots and the faint ghost of menthol cigarettes before Red thumps down onto the bench next to him, so he doesn’t flinch. Shame curdles in the pit of his soul. Eyes still closed, he says, “I’m fine, dude.”

“Yeah, you look fantastic,” Red says.

Sans figured that wouldn’t work. He debates the merit of trying to distract Red with snarky bullshit, but it seems exhausting. For once, he goes for the truth. “The lights just gave me a headache. Got a little motion sick. It’s eased up. Go back and watch the rest of the thing.”

“The show was over. Now it’s just some asshole trying to get people to spring for another one of their shows. It’s a racket,” Red says. “Didn’t know you got migraines like the boss.”

“I don’t,” Sans says. Or at least he didn’t. He hasn’t had one of these headaches, the kind with sudden icepick stabbing in one eye that eases up after an excruciating minute or two, for years now. He figured they were another lingering side effect of the meds Gaster gave him. They used to be the forewarning for a seizure, but not since he was a teenager, thankfully.

Probably. Hopefully. That’s the last thing he fucking needs right now.

(Interesting that he got one of those headaches at the very same moment he mistook that kid for Gaster, isn’t it. Interesting that he’s had two of these episodes in one day. Interesting that Red couldn’t seem to feel him shaking. Very, very interesting.)

(But even the memory of that terror is fading, dreamlike, the longer he sits here next to Red. The headaches used to come with a crushing sense of dread and a lot of visual static even when they didn’t end in a seizure. Just stupid neurological bullshit. He can think of a dozen rational explanations for why he saw Gaster in that scrawny goth kid and the hitchhiker earlier.) 

(Rule of threes. One or two moments like this could be a fluke. But if it happens again...)

(Don’t think about it.)

Sans says, “Didn’t mean to drag you out. Sorry.”

“Ain’t got nothing to be sorry for. Like I told you, it was just some dude talking up how the other two shows they got are for more advanced audiences or whatever.” After a long pause, Red grudgingly admits, “I needed to get out of there before there was a crowd headed for the door. Too many people in too close quarters.”

“Yeah,” Sans says. He’s plenty uncomfortable around this many people, and he doesn’t have Red’s history. It’s hard to miss the way that even in the middle of the tour, Red keeps finding excuses to put his back to the wall or Edge or Sans, where no one can unexpectedly come up behind him. “Still pretty cool, right?”

“Yeah,” Red says. The sheer contentment in his voice brings the last bit of warmth back into Sans’s soul. 

The door opens again to release the few dozen people that were in the planetarium with them. Red bristles as they pass by; apparently the quarters are still a little too close for his taste. The kids are the last to come out, with Edge and Toriel riding herd. 

Edge visibly relaxes when he sees the two of them waiting, which gives Sans another thing to feel guilty about. It must’ve worried the hell out him to see them slip out when he couldn’t follow. If Sans had just kept his shit together for another five minutes instead of getting spooked by nothing... 

Sans gives him a grin that’s supposed to be reassuring, and Edge’s frown deepens. Welp.

Sans levers himself off of the bench and meanders over to the cluster of kids, his hands shoved in his pockets. Red follows a couple steps behind him, a protective shadow in his peripheral vision, although he’s a lot shorter than the shadow who usually lurks there. 

“That was exciting, was it not?” Toriel asks the gathered kids. “Now we’re continuing on to the Natural History Museum to have lunch and see a great deal of bones, or so I’ve heard. Mr. Sans, tibia fair, I know this wasn’t originally in the plan, but will you be joining us to help us bone up on the natural sciences?”

The obvious answer is yes. The headache has passed, and any lingering fear from the unfortunate case of mistaken identity in the planetarium is gone now. He’s a little tired, sure, but he’s fine. Even if biology was never his thing, he’s heard Alphys nerd out enough that he’s competent on a fifth grade level. If he goes back to the hotel now, Red will feel obligated to go with him because protective bullshit, which leaves Edge on his lonesome in unfamiliar territory at least until Red has a chance to bamf back in and check on him, which will make Red a goddamn basketcase, so--

Someone walks too close to them. Red doesn’t flinch, but the slow, deliberate way his head turns as he looks at the interloper says that he’s quickly running out of tolerance for people getting in his space. Another few hours in a crowded museum might well end with blood on the floor.

“Sorry, kids,” Sans says. “I’m mostly into the unnatural sciences. Besides, I’m not used to working for a living. Gotta go take a nap before I catch a work ethic or something. I hear that’s kinda contagious.”

Some of them actually look disappointed, which is a nice ego boost. The few kids who seem to give a shit one way or the other turn their puppy eyes on Red, who exchanges a look with Edge. There’s a whole conversation without a single word spoken or an expression changed. Sans has the sudden and completely unfounded suspicion that by trying to manipulate Red into going back to the hotel, he got played by Red like a cheap kazoo.

Red thumps Sans’s shoulder hard enough to stagger him and says, “Peace out, rugrats. I’ll pop back in and check on you to make sure you’re not doing anything dumb, so don’t lick the glass display cases or steal the shiny rocks or whatever.”

“Then I thank you again for your help, Mr. Red, Mr. Sans,” Toriel says. “We’ll see you back at the hotel. Now--”

As she moves onto giving the kids marching orders, Catti, who made her way over to stand by Red as soon as she was unleashed from the planetarium, mutters in an undertone, “Sure, leave me here with the nerds.”

Red gives her an amused look, then leans over and says something to her that’s too quiet to hear under the murmur of museum traffic. Catti’s expression is convincingly bored (even if it’s wasted on Red and Sans), but her ears perk up with interest. Red says, “Capiche?”

“Why do you talk like you think you’re an old school gangster?” Catti whispers.

“Because he does,” Sans whispers back. “It’s sad, really.”

Catti smirks. She’s everything Red deserves in a minion.

“I’m gonna take that as a yes,” Red says. He looks at Sans. “C’mon. You c’n buy me a hot dog or something on the way back to the hotel.”

The cultural subtext makes that a weird-ass statement about something or other. Sans drawls, “Oh, may I?” in the full knowledge that he will.

Red grins, sharp and pretty, and heads for the exit. As he follows, Sans cranes around to give Edge a grin and a wink. Edge watches him go, his eyes heavy-lidded and thoughtful, until the door closes between them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: Content warnings: Red is twitchy about having so many humans around, discussion of anti-monster prejudice, Sans mistakes someone for Gaster again and either has a dissociative episode or is somehow isolated from the world because of creepy void shit
> 
> Red thinks getting his new minion to spy for him is perfectly ethical, thank you very much, why else do you think he was nice to her, because he likes her gumption and she reminds him of preteen Edge? Pfffffft. Red doesn't have FEELINGS.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> detailed content warnings in the endnotes

When the door to their hotel room closes behind them, Sans has about 2.5 seconds to appreciate the peace and quiet before Red grabs him by the front of his jacket and pushes him back against the door.

“Hi there,” Sans says, instinctively grabbing at Red’s shoulders to steady himself as Red bypasses his mouth entirely to kiss his jaw. He turns throat because he’d like to encourage more of that, thanks. “Did you want something?”

Red nuzzles his throat, his breath hot against the bone as he murmurs, “Yeah. Been wanting to do this for two fucking hours.”

Red’s teeth resting gently on his throat, no pressure behind the bite, makes Sans shiver. He chuckles, a rough sound. “You know how close I got to dragging you into a closet somewhere when you started ranting about how stupid the space race was?”

Red’s teeth release their grip, and Sans feels him grinning as he nuzzles the place where he didn’t quite bite. Red reaches between them, dragging the zipper to Sans’s jacket down, and then pushes the jacket off Sans’s shoulders. Sans cooperates. The jacket slides all the way to the floor, a potential trip hazard, which is a problem for future Sans to deal with. Right now, Sans is a little too busy grabbing Red by the hips and pulling him closer.

“Yeah?” Red asks. He tugs Sans’s shirt to the side, baring his collarbone, and nuzzles there too. His voice is low and intimate. “Feeling nostalgic? Were you gonna get on your knees for me?”

“Might’ve,” Sans says. His breath hitches as Red’s tongue drags over the bruise on his collarbone, which has faded to almost nothing. “If you asked nicely.”

Red scrapes his teeth against Sans’s collarbone, a bright spark of sensation that’s not quite pain. Sans’s breath shudders out. His fingers flex restlessly on Red’s hips, slipping just beneath the waistband so Sans can trace the top of Red’s iliac crests with his thumbs. Red’s bones are hot to the touch.

(This is what he needed. That weird mental glitch in the planetarium is a thousand miles away, buried beneath the relentless heat of Red pressed up against him.)

“The boss would know exactly what we were doing,” Red says. Sans’s breath catches hard in his throat. “You’d come strolling back out, all pleased with yourself--”

“Oh, that’s rich coming from you.”

“-- and he’d know that if he had the balls to kiss you, you’d still taste like me.” Red kisses the mark on Sans’s collarbone. It’d be almost sweet if Sans ignored the shark teeth that could crack him open like a wishbone, and that really shouldn’t make him hot. “You do love riling him up.”

“_I_ love riling him up? I’m not the one--” Another teasing scrape of teeth across his clavicle, and Sans’s train of thought fully derails. “Fuck, just--”

“Just what, sweetheart?” Red says, merciless. “Did you want something?”

“Well, I’d sure love for you to be less of a dick,” Sans says. Since Red seems to be in no particular rush, he lets his hands wander from Red’s hips to his ass, shamelessly feeling him up. 

Red laughs. “Yeah, you ain’t getting that. Anything else? Say, giving you another pretty little mark?” 

Which would be right there for Edge to see if Sans happened to use that convenient hot tub. Sans thinks of the way Edge looked when he came home to find Red biting his mark into Sans’s bones, the sheer feral want in his eyes that Edge didn’t smother quite fast enough to keep Sans from seeing it. 

He’s already putting a lot of trust in Edge’s restraint. But it’s gotten addictive, seeing that look in Edge’s eyes, basking in the evidence of how much Edge wants him, getting drunk on it. Edge won’t take more than is on offer. 

Edge might have restraint, but Sans has never been known for his willpower.

“It’s been a whole week or so since you gnawed on me,” Sans says. His diffident tone is probably ruined by the way he’s already tilting his head to the side to give Red better access. “I wouldn’t want you to start chewing on the furniture because you’re bored.”

“Sweet of you,” Red says. 

He nuzzles Sans again, rubbing his cheek against him like a big cat. His tongue drags over the bone in a long, lazy lick. And then he sets his teeth around Sans’s clavicle again, gradually increasing the pressure. It feels strange like this, a building sensation instead of something sharp and sudden. It aches like a bitch, but Sans’s knees tremble and he finds himself grasping at Red to keep him close.

As he squirms, Red presses his thigh up between Sans’s to rub enticingly against his pelvis. Sans jolts, an involuntary “oh” jerked from his throat as he realizes all at once how much this is really doing it for him. Red hums, deeply pleased. Sans swallows and says roughly, “Okay, I think you got it.”

Red immediately lets him go. Sans ruthlessly smothers the part of him that’s sorry about that. Red considers his handiwork, his eyes heavy-lidded, and then grins at Sans. “Hey, nice. I think that’s the best one yet.”

“Congrats,” Sans says. His face feels hot. “You want a sharpie so you can sign your artwork?”

“I think I just did,” Red says. “You okay there, Sansy? You look like I might need to turn the heat down.”

“Fuck you,” Sans says mildly.

Red shrugs. “It’s your turn, babe. You can do whatever you want with me.”

Sans opens his mouth, not sure what he’s going to blurt out, only to be cut off by the faint buzzing of Red’s cellphone. Red pulls it out, checks the screen, and puts the phone back.

“Update from the minion?” Sans asks.

Red shrugs. “I had a gap in my information network at the school. She’s a sharp kid. Figured I’d see how she did keeping me up to date on the situation. Plus if the shit hits the fan, the boss is gonna have his hands full and might not be able to call right off.”

That thought puts some of the tension back in Red’s expression, the slightest tightness around his eyesockets. Sans isn’t too fond of the idea of Edge out there guarding the kids alone either. (Especially if Sans is wrong about whatever the fuck happened in the planetarium and it _is_ something to worry about.)

Sans leans forward, pressing a kiss to the corner of Red’s mouth, and then gives him a little push backwards. “Okay. You got me back to the hotel. You can go check on Edge now.”

Red’s gaze drags down Sans’s body, then back up again. Red grins. “You sure about that? You look like I could take care of a few more things while I’m here.”

“You’ll be distracted worrying about Edge and the kids the whole time,” Sans says. “No thanks.”

“Ohhh,” Red says. “So you want my full attention, is that it?”

“What can I say?” Sans says with a shrug. “I’ve gotten spoiled.”

“Heh.” Red seems to almost say something else, only to bite it back at the last moment. With a lingering look at Sans’s collarbone, Red says, “Gimme a couple minutes to make sure none of the brats decided to pull a jewel heist or something.”

“Try not to shank anybody,” Sans says.

“Nag, nag,” Red sighs. Then he’s gone. For the first time all day, Sans is alone. 

Which is fine. Because that moment in the planetarium was nothing. He has nothing to worry about.

Yep.

Sans reaches up to touch the tender little bruise where Red marked him. It’s still throbbing faintly. He has the urge to press on it to set that ache off again. He’s not gonna think about that too hard.

His ancient laptop is in his inventory. He puts his back against the headboard (because the thought of sitting with his back to the room makes the place between his scapula prickle) and takes a second to text Papyrus an update. Then he spends several minutes wrangling with the hotel wifi and finally settles in to listen to some surveillance they got from the embassy this morning. It’s a good distraction. Makes him feel halfway useful.

Red blips back in and out a couple times. Seems surprised to find Sans actually working, not napping. At one point, when Red comes back as jumpy as a spooked cat, he sits beside Sans and steals one of his earbuds for a couple minutes. When Sans asks how things are going, Red just shrugs and says, “Nothing to worry about. Too fucking crowded.” Then he rubs his cheek against Sans’s shoulder and is gone again.

One thing that was hard to adjust to when they got to the surface: seasons are weird. It turns out that where they live now, it gets dark real early in the autumn. It’s only late afternoon, but the sun is already creeping down on the horizon, casting long shadows, when Red comes back for the last time. Red glances around, clearly taking in the fact that Sans left every single light on, and then strolls over and closes Sans’s laptop for him.

“What the fuck,” Sans says.

“I’m off the clock, which means you’re off the clock,” Red says. “Union mandated break.”

“I wasn’t aware that nosy bastards had a union,” Sans says. “The kids are done?”

“No, but Knight-Knight finally showed up. She’s taking the, heh, night shift. She likes kids,” Red says, as if that’s some weird and slightly distasteful personal quirk.

“Uh-huh,” Sans says. “How’s the minion?”

Red gives him a sidelong look, like he gets what Sans is implying and doesn’t much care for it. Then he yawns and unzips his jacket. “You wanna put that hot tub to good use? The boss is just sticking around until the kids finish up the tour. Might be an hour or so. Figure we can get dinner once he’s here.”

Sans takes a good long look at Red, the way his shoulders are still up around his acoustic meatus, and says, “Room service? I’m kinda beat.”

It’s the truth, which is probably why Red flicks an assessing glance at him and then says without a fight, “Sure.” His grin is all wicked suggestion. “Sounds real cozy. You gonna make sex noises while you eat again, or is that just for food the boss made?”

“Depends on how good the food is,” Sans says. He shoves his laptop back in his inventory and climbs off the bed, going for his duffel. It has its own inventory system, crammed full of all the things Papyrus thought he could possibly need and then some. There’s a suit. Sans didn’t know he even owned a suit.

But hey, there’s swim trunks. Bless Papyrus for thinking of everything.

There’s the sound of the hot tub’s taps being turned on high. When Sans looks up, Red’s standing there without a stitch of clothing on, because of course he is. He looks damned good like that, because of course he does.

Sans says, “Dude.”

“What?” Red asks. Butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. “Don’t got fancy swim trunks. Besides, you’ve seen it.”

“Edge is coming back soon,” Sans says.

Red snorts. “He’s definitely seen it.” After a moment, Red cocks his head and asks, “Izzat a problem?”

Well, now. That could be two questions. Does Sans have an issue with Red being naked in front of him and Edge? Not really. Red would back off in a second if Sans asked.

As for Edge having seen it? That’s less of a problem than it used to be.

(The morning after Sans explained the Gaster thing, he remembers huddling in their shower and hearing the unmistakable thud of Edge shoving Red against a wall. He remembers telling himself that he was straining to listen just because he needed to know when it was safe to come to the kitchen. He remembers that brief moment that he was tempted to lean over and taste Edge on Red’s tongue.)

(He wants them both. He wants them both to be happy. They can give each other things that he can’t. Is it weird to be okay with them taking care of each other? Yep, it sure fucking is. But his whole life has gotten real weird in the last nine months, so fuck it.)

Red is watching the byplay of Sans’s expressions very, very carefully. His grin is a little crooked. Sans decides it’s safer to pretend Red is talking about the lack of swim trunks. He shrugs. “Hey, if you wanna put your naked tailbone where humans have been rubbing their junk, be my guest.”

“Oh no, I might get pregnant,” Red deadpans. He tests the water, then flicks it at Sans. “You gonna put those shorts of yours on or just gawk at me?”

“Both,” Sans says. “Especially since you’re naked and bent over with your coccyx in the air.”

Red wiggles his hips in an enticing way, which is both hilarious and slightly disturbing. Sans snorts and peels out of his clothes. By the time he’s got the swim shorts on, the tub has almost filled to the point where the _don’t flood our fucking hotel room_ safeguards won’t let the water get any higher. Red jerks his chin at the tub. “Get in.”

“Why, you hoping the hot tub shark decides to eat me first?” Sans asks. He climbs awkwardly over the rim of the hot tub, which wasn’t necessarily made for short people. “‘Cause I hate to tell you, buddy, but I’ve got no meat on my bones.”

“You’re still plenty fun to bite,” Red says. “Siddown.”

Sans gingerly lowers himself. It’d be his luck to break his goddamn spine slipping in the tub. The water is just shy of painfully hot, which is how both of them like it. As soon as he’s seated, Red promptly turns the taps off and crawls into the tub, depositing himself on Sans’s lap. The water sloshes with his movement, a miniature tide lapping over them both. Red leans into him, looping his arms around Sans’s neck, making Sans very aware of the fact that Red’s naked and straddling his pelvis.

Sans automatically goes to put his hands on Red’s hips only to pull up short when he realizes it’d mean submerging the collar. He’s already showered with it on once or twice, but he’s not sure about dunking the damned thing.

“You can get it wet,” Red says, amused. “It’s not as thick as mine, but it’s tougher than it looks. If you’re worried, the boss has got fancy oils for it. He’ll be happy to slick you up.”

“That was an impressive amount of innuendos all at once,” Sans says. His hands drift down to rest on Red’s iliac crests, where they wanted to be in the first place.

“I try,” Red says. “Anyway, you got me. What’re you gonna do with me?”

Sometimes the way Red just puts himself in Sans’s hands like that scares the hell out of him. Feelings: his greatest nemesis.

“I was thinking we might enjoy a nice relaxing soak,” Sans teases. 

“I’ve heard sex is relaxing,” Red says.

Sans snorts. “Sex with you is a lot of things, but I wouldn’t call it relaxing.”

Red’s grin widens as he takes that for the compliment it is.

The heat of the water is nice, coaxing the ache out of Sans’s bones. Maybe that bullshit handout the therapist gave him about different examples of self-care or whatever had a point. But it’s not himself he’s thinking about taking care of at the moment. 

His hands wander to the top of Red’s sacrum. Red groans encouragingly and leans into him a little more, shifting to give Sans better access to touch him. Sans obliges, exploring the rim of each sacral foramen with his fingertips until Red is squirming on his lap. Apparently Red really gets off on having his sacrum played with because there’s not much dirty talk, just gasps and shudders like Red can’t concentrate on anything else. Good to know.

“Hey, so it turns out this thing has jets,” Sans says, slipping the tip of his finger just inside one of Red’s foramen to stroke the vulnerable, mostly untouched bone there. He can feel Red’s femurs tremble as Red breathes out a long, shaky moan. “You wanna try them out?”

Gratifyingly breathless, Red says, “Can it wait until you’re done fingerbanging my sacrum?”

“Sure,” Sans says. 

He takes his hands off Red, who makes a truly tragic noise. Sans grins at him, because occasionally Red has to let someone else be the smug asshole in this not-relationship, and flips the switch on the wall that turns on the jets. The water burbles up around them.

“A technological miracle,” Red says flatly. “Can we get back to the sex now?”

“Uh-huh,” Sans says. Helpfully, he puts his hands on Red’s hips and gives him a nudge towards the side of the tub. “How about you sit there?”

“What, in front of the--” Realization penetrates through Red’s boner-induced haze. He grins. “You kinky fucker.”

“I dunno if that counts as kinky,” Sans says. 

Red snorts. “Because you’re the fucking kink master all of a sudden. Gimme a second.”

The water sloshes dangerously again as Red re-positions himself where Sans asked him to sit. (Where Sans _told_ him to sit.) Sans watches his face so he can see the second that Red first feels the water on his sacrum. Grasping at the rim of the tub, Red gasps, “Fuck. Okay.”

“Too much?” Sans asks.

Red grins at him, wild and pretty, and moves a little closer to the side of the hot tub. A shudder rolls through him, and he makes a noise deep in his throat. “Yeah. I like it. Just ain’t gonna take long. C’mere.”

Sans goes. He can’t not. When he gets close enough, Red grabs him by the hips and drags him even closer. Apparently the plan is to trade laps. He straddles Red’s lap, hesitating before he lets his full weight pin Red against the side of the tub. “If you wanna stop, just tell me. Or move me, I guess.”

His eyelights burning bright, Red says, “Yeah, okay. Now hold me down.”

“Fuck,” Sans breathes, shaken by the way those words make his pubic symphysis throb. He gives Red what he wants, and the noise Red makes shudders through Sans like a touch. Sans watches the sharp pleasure play across Red’s face, not sure what to do with his hands. Carefully, he lets them rest on Red’s shoulders, pinning him more thoroughly. Making him take it.

Red moans, full-throated and shameless. His hands grasp at Sans’s hips. “God, that’s so...”

Sans’s grip tightens involuntarily on Red’s shoulders. Red’s shaking beneath him, bones rattling quietly against the porcelain. Sans can’t move, can’t breathe, afraid to break this moment wide open. His soul feels heavy and hot, the beat of it almost drugged.

“That’s right,” Sans murmurs, the words slightly awkward on his tongue. Red doesn’t seem to mind, his head falling back to rest on the rim of the tub hard enough to make Sans wince. Red’s moans are getting slightly frantic, quickly building in volume. For the first time in minutes, Sans remembers the other people in the hotel. (More to the point, he remembers anything but Red squirming beneath him.) “You need me to cover your mouth?”

“Yeah,” Red rasps, a filthy noise. His eyelights are completely blown. “I can’t--”

Sans presses his hand over Red’s mouth, careful of the sharp points of his teeth. It’s a dizzying echo of that night Red fucked him until he blacked out. Now he’s the one making Red lose it. He’s the one in control.

Red’s noises are muffled, but it doesn’t make them any less pornographic. The pleasure in Red’s expression is so intense that it could just as well be pain, his eyes squinched shut tight. Red’s desperate grip on his hips is probably leaving marks. Sans thinks about what it must feel like, the ruthless stimulation of water penetrating Red’s sacral foramen, and his pubic symphysis aches like a tender bruise.

“Fuck, you look good like this,” Sans says. As soon as it’s out of his mouth, he realizes how stupid that is, both too touchy-feely and too inadequate for the way Red looks as he struggles with the pleasure. He doesn’t have the words.

But Red shudders hard, his voice cracking in the middle of a moan. He’s so close. Just needs that one last push. Which is Sans’s only excuse for letting his free hand wander to Red’s throat and come to rest over the collar. Edge has been charging it with intent for years now; his presence thrums so strongly in the collar that Sans automatically looks for him, convinced that Edge might’ve slipped quietly into the room while they were distracted and is standing there, watching them.

(The thought makes his soul throb like a needy cunt.)

Red strains almost hard enough to shove Sans off, sobbing out a desperate noise into Sans’s hand, and Sans instinctively tightens his grip around Red’s throat. It’s enough. Red comes hard, crying out. It’s muffled, but Sans hears it. It makes his marrow burn hotter, and he grinds involuntarily onto Red’s lap, which just drags another ragged cry from Red’s throat as the jet of water hits him at a new angle. 

(Sans could just keep him right here, overwhelmed and sobbing with overstimulation as the water gets him off again and again. Red would let him. Red would love it.)

Sans takes his hand off Red’s throat and shakily fumbles the jets off. Red goes limp beneath him all at once, like a puppet with his strings cut. If Sans wasn’t pinning him to the wall, he’d probably slide down it and sink under the water. Red’s still making throaty little noises as he winds down, like he can’t help it, but they’re quieter. Sans risks taking his hand away to ask cautiously, “Red? You good?”

There’s a long moment where Red catches his breath and Sans just waits in an agony of anxiety. Then Red sighs, long and pleased. “We gotta get one of those.”

Sans snorts, a little giddy with sheer relief that he hadn’t broken Red or something. “I’m not sure Edge would be down for remodeling just to put a hot tub in for sex purposes.”

Red grins up at him. “Y’wanna bet?”

“Not really.” Sans studies him, all pleased with the universe and limp from endorphins. For the first time, he notices that there are tears at the corners of Red’s eyes. His soul lurches in a complicated reaction he’s not entirely sure he wants to think about too hard. He smudges the tears away with his thumb, and Red nuzzles into his hand. “You want a juicebox or something?”

“Maybe later,” Red says. “That was fun. You wanna try it?”

“Uh,” Sans says. His body thinks that would be an awesome idea, and the rest of him is very aware that they’re in a hotel room and Edge is going to be back in an hour or so. Rationality wins by a very narrow margin. “Nope.” 

Red tsks. One of his hands slips down the front of Sans’s swim shorts, and Sans shudders hard enough to make the water ripple around them. “Shame. Maybe another time.”

Red’s fingertips rests on Sans’s pubic symphysis, right where he’s been aching to be touched, and Sans lets out a shaky breath. As Red rubs the sensitive cartilage between his forefinger and thumb, he murmurs, “The boss has this thing he does sometimes. Y’know, on special occasions and shit.”

“Uh-huh,” Sans says mindlessly. Red’s touch feels so good he can’t think straight.

Red leans in and steals a kiss, although maybe it doesn’t count as theft if Sans is such a willing accomplice. When Sans pulls back a little to gasp for breath as Red expertly strokes him, Red continues in that quiet, coaxing voice, “He takes some silk cord and--”

The question of what Edge does with the silk cord is just going to have to haunt Sans forever, apparently, because Red is cut off by the sound of a keycard being inserted. There’s a whir. Before the lock clunks open, Red’s hand is out of his pants and Sans has shoved himself over to the other side of the hot tub. Nothing to see here.

Well, aside from the violently churning water in the tub, the mess of water on the floor that spilled over the side when Red was coming, and the way magic is burning bright at both of their joints. But other than that, it’s completely fine.

Casually, Red turns his head and grins at Edge in the doorway. “Hey, boss.”

Edge takes in the whole tableau at a glance. When he sees Sans, his eyes widen just a little before he clears his throat and politely looks away. 

“I’ll come back in a few minutes,” Edge says, staring at the wall.

“Nah,” Sans says. Red starts to open his mouth, and Sans glares at him until he shuts it and just smirks instead. Sans tries to give Edge an encouraging grin, which is kind of lost on Edge because he’s still intensely studying that wall. “We’re good. Stay. How was the tour?”

“The queen took the children through the gallery of bones,” Edge says. “Between her skeleton puns and the children asking if I knew every single creature on display, it was torture.”

Red snorts. “Funny. When I showed up, you were telling the kids all about how the raccoon was our pet before he decided to run away from home.”

“I had to do something to shut them up,” Edge says. He disappears into the bathroom.

“The raccoon’s name was Stripes,” Red tells Sans. “Not a very talkative guy, Stripes.”

Edge comes back out with a few towels, which he tosses onto the floor beside the hot tub. “It seemed to amuse them, at least. I--” Edge stops short, staring at Red, then demands, “Where are your fucking clothes?”

“In the duffel bag where I left ‘em, probably,” Red says.

Edge looks at Sans, wide-eyed, apparently surprised as hell that Sans isn’t flailing like a muppet in scandalized horror. Sans grins at him. “We’ve both seen it.”

The surprise in Edge’s eyes gives way to a kind of thoughtful consideration, a recalculation of the angles. It’s the same way Edge looked at him last night when Sans said he wanted to climb Edge like a tree. Sans manages not to shiver at the heat and hunger in that look, but it’s a near thing.

“I suppose that makes sense,” Edge says. His gaze wanders to the new mark on Sans’s collarbone, lingering there. “Seeing as we’ve both done a great deal more than look at him.”

“Yeah,” Sans says. He has the twin urges to cover himself up (because he hasn’t been this naked in front of Edge since that time he almost died) and to just soak up Edge’s attention. Both seem like terrible ideas. He tries redirecting instead. “Did you want to try it out?”

“What?” Edge asks, startled out of his intense study of Sans’s clavicle.

“Uh, the hot tub,” Sans says, belatedly realizing how that might’ve sounded. “Not Red. Pretty sure you already voided Red’s warranty.”

“Hey, replication of results is important,” Red says, grinning. “C’mere and try me out. You can share, can’t you?”

The mental images of all the ways they could share Red strike Sans like a brick tossed off a highway overpass. Sans swallows hard and looks away, but he knows Edge sees his reaction. The warm weight of Edge’s regard rests on him like a hand on the back of his neck.

“An idea for later, perhaps,” Edge says. “But no, I’m not getting in the hot tub. It’s not really built for someone my height, and I didn’t bring clothes.”

“Your loss,” Red sighs. He flicks a little water at Edge’s boots, earning himself a narrow-eyed look. “C’n we get one of these at home?”

Edge scoffs. “So I can clean up after you? Hardly.”

Red folds his arms over the rim of the tub, rests his chin on it, and grins up at Edge. “Aww, boss, you ain’t even heard about the awesome things you can do with it. Sans had this great idea to put my sacrum right in front of one of the jets--”

“Okay,” Sans says, cutting Red off because he can’t handle the sudden interest on Edge’s face. “Water’s getting kinda cold. I’m getting out.”

“Aw,” Red says. “Not hot enough for you, Sansy? I can turn it up.”

That’s what Sans is afraid of. He gets up carefully, holding onto the edge of the tub. Edge offers him a hand out. Because he feels like he has to, Sans deadpans even as he takes Edge’s hand, “Y’know, between Red trying to protect me from sidewalk ninjas and you worrying that I’ll kick it climbing over the side of a tub, I’m starting to get a complex.”

“It’s basic courtesy, you stubborn asshole,” Edge says, the light in his eyes soft. “I have no doubt you’d be fine, but it’d be rude to just stand here and watch you struggle without offering a hand.”

“Because we’re so polite normally,” Sans says.

“Well, _I_ am,” Edge says dryly. “You two, on the other hand…”

“Keep holding hands and talking all day, I got a great view of your ass,” Red says.

Belatedly, Sans realizes that yep, they sure are holding hands right now. He wills himself not to blush and probably does it anyway. He climbs out of the tub and comes to the second realization, which is that he’s standing very close to Edge while half-naked _and_ they’re still holding hands. Welp.

“I, uh, got the collar wet,” Sans says, unable to do the smart thing and avert his eyes from the expression on Edge’s face as Edge looks down at him. He lets go of Edge’s hand. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. I chose that collar in part because it was durable. I have some oil for it, if you’d like.” Red snorts, probably because he called it, and Edge glances briefly at him before returning his attention to Sans. “Speaking of the collar, I should renew the intent on it.”

“Okay,” Sans says, trying not to look as relieved by that thought as he is. What happened earlier is just a mental glitch, but he can’t say it wouldn’t be reassuring to know that the collar is at full strength. “Good idea.”

(Sans can feel Red watching his expression. Hopefully that’s just his imagination. His imagination is being a total dick today. At least Edge seems pleased that Sans told him it’s a good idea.)

With casual cheer, Sans says, “Welp, I better put on some clothes and stop dripping on the floor, so--”

“Wait,” Edge says. Then he just sort of stares helplessly at Sans for a few seconds like he didn’t intend to actually say it.

When Edge doesn’t continue, Sans gently prompts him. “Edgelord?”

Edge’s gaze comes to rest on the mark on Sans’s clavicle, and then he folds his arms like he’s not sure what to do with his hands and stares at the wall instead. “Nothing. Get dry before you get cold.”

“You can touch it if you want,” Sans says.

Edge draws in a breath. The water sloshes as Red moves closer. When Sans glances down, he finds Red grinning up at him with delight, like Sans is the most expensive thing on the menu at a fancy restaurant where Red’s fucking the head chef and gets all of it for free. 

“Where’d you get all this nerve all of a sudden?” Red asks. “I like it.”

Sans has no fucking idea. But he knows that if that’s what Edge wants, then Sans wants him to have it. Hesitantly, Sans meets Edge’s eyes. The look in them is so intense that he almost flinches. Not because Edge would hurt him, but because that look makes him feel like he could do anything. It’s dangerous.

“It’s okay,” Sans tells Edge. He cracks a grin. “Just be gentle with me, edgelord.”

“Not too gentle, though,” Red says, watching with his chin propped in his hand. “He can take it.”

“Fuck you,” Sans says, an automatic reaction. He’s not sure why such simple words make him feel so flustered.

Red laughs.

When Edge touches him, it’s feather-light, just the brush of his gloved fingers. Even through the gloves, his hands are so warm they almost burn. Or maybe the bruise is just that sensitive. Either way, Sans’s breath catches a little in his throat like Edge touched him somewhere much more intimate. Edge gives him a sharp look that gentles as he realizes Sans isn’t hurt or protesting.

“It’s lovely,” Edge murmurs. With a fingertip, he traces over the outline left by Red’s teeth, his touch gentle where Red was rough. Sans’s soul beats faster, so clearly visible through his ribs that there’s no way Edge could miss his reaction. Edge considers it, then meets Sans’s eyes. The heat in them could take Sans’s knees out from under him. “Thank you.”

And then Edge takes his hand back.

Amazingly, Sans doesn’t grab him by the wrist and put that hand back on him where it belongs. He just stares at Edge, both of them knowing that Edge can tell exactly what Sans wants to do right now. Edge looks as infuriatingly and attractively smug as Red on his best/worst day.

Sans exhales slowly, trying to vent the overwhelming amount of _take me now_ arousal that one touch woke in him. “Wow. Okay. I’m gonna…”

“Of course,” Edge says solemnly, that teasing amusement still in his eyes.

“Yeah,” Sans says. Not breaking eye contact with Edge, he backs up and grabs blindly for the first duffel he can find. “Okay.”

“That’s my bag, y’know,” Red says, deeply amused.

Sans stops, considers, and keeps going anyway. Fuck it, he’s gonna steal Red’s softest shirt and there’s not a damn thing Red can do about it. 

As soon as the bathroom door closes, Sans leans heavily against it. With trembling hands, he touches his collarbone where the heat of Edge’s touch still lingers.

Right. Okay. He has good reasons for not flinging the door open and demanding that Edge keep touching him. Noble reasons. For one thing, they’re in a hotel, and judging from his reaction when Edge touched his collarbone, there might be noise complaints if Edge touches anywhere else.

For another, this is too important for him to do the same stupid shit he always does. Just get someone off, maybe let them touch him, and then shut them out because he’s allergic to letting people see him with his guard down. He can’t do that to Edge. He can’t let himself fuck this up.

Of course, it wasn’t like that with Red. Maybe he could just--

Sans drags a shaky hand over his face. He’s sweating a little. Nice. Real attractive.

There’s a sharp rap on the door, making him jump out of his metaphorical skin. Red says, “Hey, you wanna look at the room service thing, or you just gonna keep hiding in the bathroom?”

“Just get me a burger or something,” Sans says.

“Whatever,” Red says. “I’m gonna rub everything in your bag all over my junk.”

“I assumed you already did that months ago,” Sans says.

“I was saving it for a special occasion. Just put some fucking clothes on and come out here.”

So Sans puts some fucking clothes on. Funny how Red’s clothes always seem softer than his. Maybe they use a different fabric softener, or maybe Red just doesn’t buy his shirts from the dollar store, which would explain why most of them have the logos for bands Sans has never heard of. These are questions he doesn’t actually care enough to ask. Besides, Red doesn’t seem to mind Sans borrowing his clothes.

In fact, judging from the approving once-over Red gives him when he steps out of the bathroom, Red enjoys the hell out of Sans borrowing his clothes. Territorial bastard.

(The sight of Red sprawled on the bed in one of Sans’s t-shirts and a pair of boxers does funny things to Sans’s soul.)

Seeing as Edge is in the middle of ordering room service, Sans keeps his voice low when he says, “Wow, it’s amazing you can fit in my clothes, what with how much taller you are and everything.”

Red grins and tugs at the collar of the shirt. “It’s kinda tight around my massive… personality.”

“You’re a massive something, all right,” Sans agrees. 

He climbs onto the bed beside Red, and Red promptly leans against him. Sans wasn’t sure if Red would be so casually touchy with Edge here. Red looks a little tired. Probably worn out from hours of stressing out about crowds and a few dozen shortcuts to boot. Well, and one hell of an orgasm, if Sans says so himself.

As if he can hear Sans thinking, Red says quietly, “I’ll get you back tomorrow.”

Amused, Sans asks, “Is that a promise or a threat?”

“Whichever gets you off,” Red says, patting his knee.

Sans puts an arm around him, and Red sighs like the dog after he exhausted himself wreaking havoc. Edge glances in their direction, and the way he’s clearly trying to hide his fondness for Red (even when Red isn’t looking) makes Sans’s soul hurt for him. Sans gives him a grin.

“That will be all,” Edge says to the person on the other end of the line. “Your assistance in this matter is appreciated.”

With that brusque acknowledgement, Edge hangs up. Red says, “You sound like a dork. When’s the grub coming?”

“Half an hour,” Edge says. After a moment of hesitation, he sits gingerly on the edge of the bed like there might be a bunch of explosives under the mattress. “Which probably means forty-five minutes.”

“Groovy,” Red says. “So that gives us some time to ask Sansy what the fuck happened in the planetarium.”

Shit.

Sans looks at Edge, who looks mildly back, and then at Red, whose grin is deceptively lazy. There was plenty of time earlier for Red to tell Edge about Sans’s freakout and for the two of them to set up this ambush, which he so kindly walked right into like a dumbass. On the other hand, they didn’t hit him with it as soon as they were behind closed doors, and Red was willing to leave him on his lonesome earlier in the day, so maybe they’re not that worried about--

“You’re gonna try to blow it off, but I can see you recalculating like a goddamn GPS,” Red says.

“I told you,” Sans says, considering each word carefully. “I had a headache. Had to step out early.”

“Maybe, but you were also scared shitless,” Red says. “What happened?”

“Nothing, I just--” Both of them stare at him with the unimpressed expressions of people who’ve had to shovel through too much of his bullshit to believe him when he hands them more and tries to convince them it’s chocolate. So Sans tries something new and exciting: the actual truth. “Look, I’m guessing you guys could describe every person who was in that planetarium down to their blood type and shoe size, so you remember the skinny goth kid?”

Of course both of them clearly know who he’s talking about, because he’s in a not-relationship with Batman and Batman’s shorter, more stabby brother. In a quiet, cold voice, Edge says, “What did he do?”

“Nothing,” Sans says quickly, trying to spare the kid a month in traction and a lifetime of therapy. “But he was tall, pale and in a long black coat, and it was dark in the theater, and so for a minute there I thought he was somebody else, okay? It’s stupid.”

“Uh-huh,” Red says. “So you mistake this kid for the doctor at the same time you get a real bitch of a headache. That ain’t weird to you?”

Sans shrugs helplessly. “Those headaches can fuck with my vision.”

Red looks at Edge, the resident expert on migraines, who admits, “It’s not unheard of. Mine do on occasion. I don’t see things that aren’t there, but in a dark theater when he’s already anxious about the doctor, that could explain it.”

Red studies Sans for a long moment. Then he says, “You’re not sure it’s not him, are you?”

“Of course I’m not sure,” Sans says, an edge slipping into his voice no matter how hard he tries to dull it. “I’m pretty sure it wasn’t him, but how the fuck am I supposed to know? Seeing as he can fuck around in my nightmares, find me in an infinite void and shove us in another universe whenever he wants, him deciding to play stupid little pranks to screw with my head isn’t exactly out of the question. But it’s not worth freaking out and dragging him out of the void right now when it could be nothing.”

“What would be worth it?” Edge asks.

“What, worth all four of us probably dying and unleashing a sadistic asshole with superpowers who can’t be killed?” Sans asks. “I dunno. Not this.”

_Not me_.

Judging from the look Edge gives him, he definitely heard that second part. Maybe Red does too, because he reaches out, his thumb smoothing gently over the buckle to the collar. Red mutters, “Dumbass.”

(The judge whispers in Sans’s head: _this has nothing to do with you. He’s simply looking for an excuse to kill someone without repercussions. Once a killer, always a killer._)

(Maybe there’s a shred of truth in that, but Red’s not a very simple guy. Besides, seeing as Sans is a killer too, the judge can either shut its fucking mouth or start paying rent.)

“Listen,” Sans says, before either of them can ask any more inconvenient questions like whether this is the first time he mistook someone for Gaster. “Coming up with a plan to deal with him would have to wait until we got back to Paps anyway. I’ll be with you guys until tomorrow in case it happens again. Edge can re-up the collar. If it’s just a weird mental glitch, then no harm, no foul.”

“And if it’s not just a weird mental glitch?” Edge asks.

Sans gives an uncomfortable shrug. “Then it’s just more mind games. If he could actually do anything to me, I think he would have done it by now instead of just screwing with my head.”

Red taps Sans hard on the chest, right where his cracked soul beats. Sans bats his hand away. Red says, “Him screwing with your head ain’t exactly doing you any favors. He doesn’t have to lay hands on you to hurt you. You know that.”

Sans does, but this isn’t like the kid razing the underground, an outside threat that couldn’t be predicted or stopped. This is _Gaster_. Sans opened the door for him and invited him in. He can’t just let someone else take the hit for him. Not anymore. “Sure, but it’s not like I’m not already fucked up. If Edge keeps fixing me up--”

“Sans,” Edge says, impatient but not unkind. “I agree that we shouldn’t fight him until we know how to win, but that means we need to start planning how to do that. Now, not in three months. The situation seems to be escalating.”

“Sure,” Sans says. “Planning will go great if he could be sitting in the room watching us the entire fucking time and we’d never know.”

(Which raises the question of whether Gaster has ever watched him and Red fuck. Horrifying, but considering how nauseated Gaster was by just hearing about the stuff Sans got up to in college, the thought of Gaster suffering through Red’s sexual shenanigans is almost worth the heebie-jeebies. He doubts Gaster would intentionally watch for longer than a few seconds before he had to go dry-heave in the void for a while.)

“Then we plan how to plan,” Edge says stubbornly, which is such a goddamn Papyrus thing to say that Sans can’t not crack a grin despite everything. Suspiciously, Edge demands, “What?”

“Nothing,” Sans says. “Okay, fine, we’ll plan how to plan, but we can’t do anything without Paps, so you wanna table this discussion for now and just come over here and do the collar thing?”

Red and Edge exchange another one of those looks that are worth a thousand words, beginning with _can you believe this asshole?_ Then Edge gets up and walks around the bed. Sans kind of expects Edge to take a seat on his other side, but no, Edge takes a knee in front of him instead, being careful to avoid any wet spots on the carpet.

“Um,” Sans says, his soul lurching up into his throat at the sudden realization of how close Edge’s mouth is to his pelvis. “There’s a chair over there, y’know. You don’t have to do that.”

“Does it bother you?” Edge asks.

“No,” Sans says. “Just trying to save your knees.”

“Why?” Red asks, grinning. “You got something in mind that you want him on his knees for? ‘Cause I can think of some things.”

Ignoring him, Sans offers Edge his wrist. The way Edge’s fingers wrap completely and tenderly around it makes him want to shiver. Edge’s intent sinks into him, both the collar and his bones, like Sans can carry it around in his marrow.

When Sans glances up at Red, surprised by the lack of running commentary, he finds Red watching him instead of Edge’s work. The intensity in Red’s eyes catches Sans off guard. Sans asks, “What?”

There’s a moment where he thinks Red hesitates, which means hell has officially frozen over and the world is about to end. Then Red taps Sans’s ulna, just above where Edge is holding him, and says, “Y’know, I ain’t as good at intent as he is, but if you wanted, I could--”

“No,” Sans says, too sharply.

Red’s expression reveals nothing. That careful absence of any reaction reveals everything.

Before Red can open his mouth and say something awful or (worse) understanding, Sans says, “You’re in and out of the void, dumbass. He can’t get to Edge, but he can get to you. Don’t give him a reason to--”

“What, you’re trying to protect me?” Red says, amused.

“Maybe,” Sans snaps.

Red stares at him. His expression is extremely complicated, at least what Sans sees of it in the two seconds before he looks away. Edge’s gentle grip on his wrist is the only thing keeping him from walking out and taking a fifteen minute smoke break until the urge to strangle Red passes.

Edge is watching them both very carefully, but he holds his tongue. Apparently this is between Sans and Red.

“I know,” Sans says to Red, his voice flat and more bitter than he means it to sound. “You can laugh. It’s hilarious.”

“I didn’t say that, you prickly little bastard,” Red says. “The tyrant might’ve been laughing when you walked in, but I doubt the fishbitch hears a lot of chuckling from the dustbin.”

“Brother,” Edge says sharply.

“Wow,” Sans says, struggling with the terrible urge to laugh even as he flinches. “Thanks.”

“I’m just saying. You don’t get to take all the blame for killing him and none of the credit.” Red reaches out, his hand warm as it grasps the back of Sans’s neck. Unnervingly serious, he says, “If you don’t want me to do it, that’s your call. But the doc has already got plenty of reasons to decide to kill me, collar or no.”

Red has a point. If Gaster is listening, then he probably heard Red say he’d offer Sans justice in a handful of Gaster’s dust. Plus there’s the fact that Red’s kept Sans alive and unbroken as much as Edge has, even if he did it mostly with his dick. But still, the thought of Gaster turning his attention to Red...

Averting his eyes, Sans says, “Not yet. But--”

Someone knocks efficiently on the door. Red’s grip on Sans’s neck briefly tightens down before relaxing again; Red pets his spine with a thumb, soothing, like Sans actually protested. Seems like Red’s still a little twitchy.

“I got it,” Sans says, because inflicting Red on the poor room service guy is probably cruel and unusual punishment. 

Before he can actually get up, Edge stands smoothly and goes to the door. Okay, apparently Red _and_ Edge are a little twitchy. Not that Sans isn’t slightly on edge himself, but goddamn.

A few quiet words are exchanged at the door, and then Edge returns pushing the dinky little room service cart. He has to stoop to reach the handles. Red snickers. So does Sans. 

“Just shut up and eat,” Edge says, an indulgent almost-smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

They parcel the food out, some fancy-schmancy salad and two burgers with fries. There’s also some kind of foofy dessert. Apparently the hotel is comping them the food to make up for the room mix-up. Sans would’ve ordered at least three more burgers if he knew because hey, free food is free food. 

Edge takes his food and settles on the couch, because apparently he thinks he’s only allowed to perch on the very edge of the bed as long as it takes to make a phone call. Maybe he thinks if he actually sits on it with them, someone’s chaperone will burst in and declare that Sans’s maidenly virtue is ruined.

Sans is worried things will be tense, what with the Gaster thing and him turning down Red’s offer to put intent in the collar. That worry lasts about thirty seconds, until Red gestures at Sans with a fry and says with the grim determination of a general getting ready to reclaim lost territory, “Okay, but the only reason Pluto doesn’t count as a planet anymore is because of zone clearing--”

“Oh, here we fucking go,” Sans groans.

“-- but none of the planets in our system can even meet that goddamn requirement because there’s always stuff being injected into orbit,” Red says stubbornly. “The team on the New Horizons mission came up with that different definition--”

“You can’t just make up new definitions to suit your argument, dude,” Sans says, exasperated.

“You can when it turns out the old definitions were horseshit!” Red says.

That argument keeps them busy through the rest of dinner, at least. Edge just sits and watches them go, occasionally chiming in with a surprisingly insightful comment for someone who claims not to give a fuck about the entire subject. He has a knack for kicking the legs out from under both of their arguments. 

So Sans is in a much better mood by the time Red finally gets around to digging into dessert, which is probably why he interrupts Red (still trying stubbornly to defend the fact that the New Horizon definition doesn’t account for brown dwarfs even if Sans is pretty sure Red thinks it’s bullshit) to ask, “Are you gonna offer me some of that or what?”

It catches Red off guard. Red goes still, his eyelights bright and watchful in his scarred face. The intensity of that look seems to strip Sans’s thoughts bare, assessing him like a complicated puzzlebox Red means to unlock. 

Sans glances sidelong at Edge, realizing about five seconds too late that he probably should’ve asked before flinging himself off the cliff, but Edge gives him a slow, pleased almost-smile that’s hot enough to scorch Sans’s clothes straight off his body.

(Wow, he’s sure thinking about being naked a lot tonight. It’s downright Freudian.)

Sans can’t let Red put his mark on the collar. But this? He can deal with this. It’s probably been a long time coming.

“You don’t owe me anything, sweetheart,” Red says, still watching Sans like he’s going to do a trick. 

“Nope. I sure don’t. Now are you gonna kick down some--” Sans takes a moment to squint at the dessert. “-- cake? I think? I dunno what that is, honestly. What did cake ever do to deserve this?”

One corner of Red’s grin quirks up. Then he forks up some of the cake (?) and holds it out. “C’mere and judge it for its sins.”

“That’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever said to me,” Sans says, and leans in to take what Red’s offering. 

The cake (?) tastes better than it looks, so rich and heavy it’s almost too much. Or maybe it tastes better because he’s biased by the way Red grins at him, smug as a cat. If Sans knew it would make him this fucking happy, he would’ve… Well, okay, he would’ve still dragged this out for three months because he’s a dumbass with intimacy issues, but still. It’s nice.

Sans swallows the food, knowing the taste of it is burned in his memory, and makes a little pleased noise because he wants to see the hunger flare in Red’s eyelights. (In Edge’s, as Edge watches them both with predatory interest.) Sans is starting to get why this is a porn genre where they come from.

With a little more raw desire than he necessarily intended, Sans says, “Verdict: arson with a hint of armed robbery.”

“I hear armed robbery is the hot new culinary trend,” Edge says.

Sans grins at him. “Hey, that was a good joke, edgelord.”

Edge mostly manages to hide his pleasure at the compliment. Not quite, though. It’s kind of adorable.

Red gathers up another bite of possibly-cake, humming something under his breath. Sans catches the tune, which is much more to his musical taste than Red’s: _is you is or is you ain’t my baby?_

Sans is his something, anyway. Damned if Sans knows what.

Casually, Red breaks off humming the greatest hits of Louis Jordan and/or BB King to ask, “You want some more?”

“Are you asking if you can sit here and feed me arson cake while you and Edge kink out on it?” Sans asks.

Red’s grin goes sharp. “Did I stutter?”

“Heh.” Sans glances sidelong at Edge, who’s watching them with feral pleasure in his eyes, and then away. “Maybe a couple more bites.”

So Red gives it to him, still humming under his breath. On the third bite, Edge makes a soft noise in his throat that sends magic involuntarily flooding down to Sans’s pelvis before he shoves it away, probably blushing as blue as a stop sign. Edge clears his throat and looks away. “Excuse me.”

“It’s okay,” Sans says a little too quickly. “We should, uh, probably stop doing that. Here. With the kids down the hall and everything.”

If Sans wants to keep his shorts on, anyway.

“Yes,” Edge says. There’s a slightly wild look in his eyes that makes Sans want to keep pushing until Edge breaks. “That would be wise, I think.”

“Welp,” Red says, with the deep self-satisfaction of someone who actually got laid today and knows he’ll get laid again in the future one way or another. Sans should probably be glad Red isn’t helpfully pointing out that they fucked in the hot tub earlier, which probably raised the rating to at least NC-17. The noises Red made when he came would need a whole new rating category. “Your loss.”

Swallowing hard, Sans says, “It’s getting late. I should text Paps to check in.”

“I should touch base with Undyne,” Edge agrees, looking like he needs the distraction as desperately as Sans does.

“I’m gonna finish this fucking cake,” Red says with malicious cheer, and takes a surprisingly neat bite off the fork considering his shark teeth.

Sans ignores him for the sake of his own sanity, seeing as he doesn’t have much to spare. He settles in to exchange texts with Papyrus for a while, mostly about the museum trip and what the kids in Papyrus’s classes did today to make him proud. There’s a lot of suggestive winky emojis in there, and a couple pictures of Edge’s cats when Papyrus stopped in to feed and pet them. It’s nice to talk to him, but it’s mostly a reminder that Sans misses his brother like an amputated limb.

(He thinks Red and Papyrus are having a little convo on the side, judging from the way Red is smirking as he texts someone. They’re probably commiserating on how stupid Edge and Sans are about each other. Or they’re making bets on how long it takes Sans to work up the nerve to kiss Edge on the mouth. Either/or.)

After a while, Papyrus declares that he’s being commandeered for bestie time on threat of having another couch tossed at him. Sans tells him good night and finishes off with a really lousy joke about mummies to make Papyrus keysmash in outrage, which for them means _everything is fine, I love you_.

As he’s finishing up, Red has already dropped his phone onto the bedside table and is flipping restlessly through the channels on the TV. They don’t get the Science Channel, which is a travesty of epic proportions, but there’s a fucking awful b-grade horror movie. 

They watch that for a while, Sans and Red leaning against the bed’s headboard and Edge (unfortunately) quarantined over on the couch. Edge brought knitting, but he’s mostly ignoring the needles in his hands in favor of snarking it up with them about how stupid the college students are. He changed into sleep clothes while Sans was texting, a t-shirt and sweatpants, and he looks soft and cozy in a way that makes Sans's fingers itch to pet him. 

Y'know, if so much as thinking the word "cozy" in relation to either of them wouldn’t make Red burst into hysterical laughter and then possibly bounce him off a wall.

When the credits roll, it’s not late, at least by their insomniac standards. Still, Sans isn’t particularly surprised when Red yawns so hard his jaw pops and tosses the remote at Edge, who easily catches it in mid-air. Red says, “I’m beat. You wanna turn in, sweetheart?”

Sans’s gaze darts to Edge, who is suddenly fascinated by who was the sound editor for Power Tool Massacre IV. (Because the roman numerals make it classy.) Sans says with what feels like an embarrassing lack of chill, “Yeah, I could sleep.”

Sure. Except his soul is about to hammer out of his chest at this abrupt burst of giddy adrenaline, and whatever tiredness he might’ve felt a couple minutes ago is long gone at the thought of what he’s about to do.

Here goes nothing.

“Hey, edgelord,” Sans says.

“Yes?” Edge says. It’d almost terse if Sans ignored the nervous tension in the line of his mouth.

Leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, Sans says, “Y’know the one logic puzzle about getting a bunch of animals across the river in a boat? The cow, the cabbage and the wolf, etc? Blah, blah, the wolf will eat the cow but not the cabbage--”

“I’m familiar with it,” Edge says. “Although I always learned it as a goat, not a cow.”

“Wishful thinking,” Red mutters.

“Right,” Sans says. “So we've got a logic puzzle here. You can’t fit on the couch--”

“I could,” Edge says stubbornly. “I’m flexible.”

Sans’s mind stalls out for a second on some mental images before he shakes it off. “So you gotta be in the bed. I could sleep on the couch easy--”

“Sans,” Edge says, even more stubbornly. “That’s not necessary.”

Stubborn to a factor of three, Sans continues, “But you and Red can’t share a bed on your lonesome because Red’s an asshole.”

“He’s got a point there, boss,” Red says.

“You and me could share the bed,” Sans says to Edge, before the words coming out of his mouth catch up to him as Edge cocks his head just a little with an amused glint in his eyes, like _oh, really?_. Sans swallows. “My point is that it’s a really big bed and we could all fit, so there’s no reason for you to be on the couch. Y’know. Logically speaking.”

There’s a heavy moment of silence, during which Red rolls his eyes dramatically and climbs under the corners on the side of the bed that’s closest to the door. Apparently Red is not sleeping on the couch, fuck you very much for asking.

Considering Sans with eyelights like embers, Edge says finally, “That’s quite a well-reasoned argument.”

“I thought so,” Sans says.

“A question, if I may,” Edge says.

“Go for it,” Sans says. “This is the Q&A part of the debate.”

“Do you want me to sleep with you?” Edge asks.

“I…” After an agonizingly long moment of fidgeting with the sheets, Sans manages to admit, “Yeah, I want you to sleep with me.”

“All right, then,” Edge says, like it’s always been as easy as asking. 

“Finally,” Red grumbles, although there’s no real bite in the words. He pats the middle of the bed. “C’mere, honey. You know where we want you.”

“In the middle, like a no homo pillow wall?” Sans deadpans, even as he feels the blush creep up the back of his neck. “That’s so sweet of you.”

He climbs under the fancy, expensive sheets in the middle of what feels like an unnecessarily vast sea of bed. Surprisingly, Red doesn’t immediately plaster himself all over Sans, just curls up on his side, facing Sans even though it puts his back to the door. Apparently that’s okay when Edge is in bed with him, watching his back. Or maybe it’s because Edge put so many magical traps on the door that anyone unauthorized trying to get in would be announced by alarms and a few messy explosions. 

Sans watches as Edge tucks the knitting back into his inventory, turns the TV off and moves around the room, turning lights off one by one. There’s a gathering tension in his soul, a nervous anticipation, as he waits for Edge to finish up and join them.

Which Edge does, eventually. He hesitates at the side of the bed, his fingertips resting on the switch to turn the single burning lamp off. His expression is one last question: _are you sure?_

Sans gives him a crooked grin. “There’s plenty of bed left, edgelord. Only 5g.”

Edge huffs a laugh. “You didn’t mention a surcharge.”

“Oh, sorry,” Sans says. “I’ll give you a discount. 15g.”

“I suppose I’d better take your offer before inflation kicks in,” Edge says. “Do you want the light on?”

“Nah,” Sans says. He refuses to live his life with the goddamn lights on all night. “It’s okay.”

Edge turns the light off, and Sans feels a traitorous spike of unease that doesn’t give a shit what he refuses to do. After a moment, his eyes adjust, and he realizes there’s plenty of light filtering through the thin curtain. The city is still alive and awake. He’d never thought he’d be so relieved by light pollution.

The bed dips beneath Edge’s weight as he slips beneath the covers. Suddenly the bed doesn’t seem big enough to swim in anymore. Sans is very fucking aware of Edge beside him, the heat and weight of his body, how much more space Edge takes up than Red. The faint, pleasant scent of his soap is the same as it is in Sans’s guilty fantasies.

Edge is watching him, eyelights burning in the dark. The mattress springs creak as Edge rolls over, turning to face him; Sans’s breath catches hard in his throat at the thought that Edge could just reach out and touch him. If Edge does, Sans’s good intentions are going to fold like a house of cards. Made of tissue paper. In the rain.

Even in the half-dark, Sans can read Edge’s expression, a contentment so deep that it almost hurts to look at. Satisfaction. Something like wonder.

“20g,” Sans whispers, because he can’t leave a nice moment alone. “Those hidden fees’ll get you every time.”

Edge smiles. There’s no almost about it.

“Your pillow talk is fucked up,” Red says, not bothering to open his eyes. Beneath the sheets, he claims Sans’s wrist with casual possessiveness.

“You’re fucked up,” Sans says.

“You’re both fucked up,” Edge says fondly. “Now go to sleep.”

Sans doesn’t think he can, for a lot of reasons. But Edge is asking, so he gives it a shot. He lays on his back between them, eyes closed, soaking up the warmth of their bodies until he’s drunk on it, listening to them breathe until the steady rhythm of it wraps gentle arms around him and eases him down.

He doesn’t dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: discussion about Gaster possibly showing up in the planetarium last chapter, Sans muses on whether Gaster has seen him and Red fuck, Red mentions Fellgore's death.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> :3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This doesn't need content warnings for once! It's a Boxing Day miracle! Although please hmu if there's anything I missed.

For the first time in a while, Sans wakes up blissfully warm. He lays there with his eyes closed, too drunk on the comfort of it to even question why or where he is. Maybe he dozed off in the afterglow with Red again. That’d explain the purring, the heavy arm draped over him, the deliciously warm body pressed up against him.

Sleepily, Sans grinds his tailbone back against Red’s pelvis to gauge if he’s maybe up for another round. Red murmurs something and nuzzles the place between Sans’s scapula, but he seems more interested in sleep than sex. That’s fine too. Sans is too comfortable to get real het up about it. He leans his brow against Red’s chest, pulling Red a little closer, settling back in to--

A few things occur to Sans in very short order:  
\- Red can’t be behind him and in front of him at the same time, that’s just fucking physics;  
\- That isn’t Red’s purr;  
\- Someone else’s arm is curled protectively around him, holding him and Red to their chest.

Cautiously, Sans opens one eye. Morning illuminates the hotel room, casting gentle light on Edge’s sleeping face. It’s Edge’s chest that Sans is curled up against. Who the hell else could it be? Sans’s arm is around Edge’s waist, his hand resting in the small of Edge’s spine like it belongs there. The front of their bodies are pressed close together, although there’s a little more space between their hips. Not much, though. 

(Holy shit, he was grinding on Red’s pelvis a second ago with Edge right fucking here.)

Sans stares at Edge, helplessly taking in details like Red’s hand resting just above Edge’s hip, fingers knotted in the fabric of Edge’s t-shirt like he means to keep Edge here with them. Edge’s t-shirt has ridden up a little, and there’s a pale sliver of his iliac crest visible, like a taunt from the universe.

Edge is purring so quietly that Sans wouldn’t hear it at all if he wasn’t cuddled up close to Edge’s chest. Such a soft sound, and yet it kicks down every single door in Sans’s soul. He listens, afraid to move or breathe in case it makes Edge stop. He wants to listen to it forever.

Maybe it’s his sudden stillness that makes Edge stir. Edge’s eyes open, soft eyelights finding Sans’s face. The purr stutters and Edge looks so uncertain, almost guilty. Sans can’t figure out any way to say that it’s okay, it’s all right, he just wants Edge to be this happy all the time.

So Sans kisses him.

It’s clumsy, just a quick graze of his mouth against Edge’s before he loses his nerve. It’s honestly more of a nuzzle than a kiss, but Edge drags in a shaky breath like Sans stabbed him, going trembling-tense under his hand.

Sans hesitates, not sure how to interpret that. Edge is holding so still, and Sans caught him off guard when he’s barely awake, and--

Before he can pull back, Edge’s hand moves to cradle his jaw. It’s a request that he stay put, not a demand. Sans tips his chin up in a silent invitation, and Edge rewards him with a soft, pleased little growl that does things to Sans’s soul.

Then Edge kisses him back. It’s better that time, lingering, achingly tender. Sans can almost taste Edge’s restraint, the brief tension in Edge’s fingers as Sans breathes a soft, involuntary sigh against Edge’s mouth. Edge is holding himself back, careful of his teeth and Sans’s skittish nerves. 

Yeah, no. That won’t do.

With a delicacy Sans usually reserves for handling explosives, he tests the points of Edge’s teeth with the tip of his tongue. A shudder runs through Edge, all out of proportion with such a small touch. When Sans does it again, Edge’s teeth part to let him inside. The delicious warmth of Edge’s body is nothing compared to the heat of his mouth.

Sans has touched Edge before, but he’s never touched Edge’s magic. Dreamt of it, sure, in incredibly pornographic detail, but the slick, plush heat of Edge’s tongue against his own drags a helpless noise from Sans’s throat. Edge echoes it.

Sans feels lit up from the inside, spontaneous combustion just waiting to happen. He breaks away for a second to catch his breath, and then Edge’s thumb strokes down the line of his jaw and his good intentions go up in smoke. Fuck catching his breath. Sans slants their mouths together again, hungrier now, pressing as close to Edge as he can, and Edge is more than happy to oblige him.

With all the movement and noise of the last few minutes, it shouldn’t surprise Sans to feel Red’s arm tighten just a little around him. It’s not enough to jerk him out of his kiss-drunk haze, but Sans takes a break from the kiss to make a sort of ‘hnngh?’ noise.

“Oh, don’t stop on my account,” Red says. The smug satisfaction in his voice is as toe-curlingly hot as it is aggravating. “I was enjoying the show.”

Sans twists around, grasping the front of Red’s shirt, and kisses him to shut him up. It’s a different kind of good than kissing Edge, rougher and more familiar. Red laughs into his mouth, touching Sans’s chin with a surprisingly gentle fingertip to encourage him to turn throat, deepening the angle of the kiss until Sans is shuddering. He nips Red’s tongue a little as it withdraws, reminding him not to get any ideas just because Sans is willing to play along this time, and Red growls approvingly.

“Fuck,” Edge rasps, almost too soft to hear. There’s a blush hot across his cheekbones, his eyes a little wild as he stares at them. “Aren’t you lovely.”

Sans has never been lovely in his entire life, but the look in Edge’s eyes almost makes him believe it. 

There’s a passing tension in Red’s body, there and gone as he apparently manages to tell himself that Edge is only talking about Sans. (And Red says Sans is good at only seeing what he wants to.) Sans leans back into Red, trying to distract him, and gives Edge what he hopes is an enticing look. 

It works, Sans thinks, because Edge’s eyelights shrink to almost nothing. Edge leans closer like he’s drawn by a magnet. Sans instinctively turns towards him, meeting him halfway in another kiss. This one is slow and thorough, both of them a little more certain that there’s no rush. Neither of them are going anywhere.

Sans feels feverish, caught between the two of them. He’s plastered against Edge below the waist now, can’t get any closer short of wrapping a leg around Edge, and that’s starting to sound like an excellent idea. There’s a slow, molten heat between his legs. Sans is playing jazz, improvising off Edge’s responses, and meanwhile Edge kisses him like it’s an exercise in battlefield tactics, learning and then exploiting every weakness Sans has. It shouldn’t work, but it’s wrecking Sans, and judging from the soft sounds Edge keeps making into his mouth, the feeling is mutual.

“Goddamn,” Red whispers against Sans’s shoulder, breathing as heavily as both of them. It’s as close to reverent as Sans has ever heard him sound, and Sans isn’t sure Red even knows he said it out loud. 

Edge breaks the kiss like he can hear Sans think, like he can taste what Sans wants, and Sans cranes around to kiss Red again. Red makes a deeply gratified sound, his fingers tangling with Edge’s where Edge is still tenderly framing Sans’s jaw.

With the inevitability of gravity, Sans knows what’s about to happen. But when Edge’s hand slides down a little to make room for Red and he touches Sans’s throat, Sans still moans. Softly, yes, mostly muffled into Red’s mouth, but unmistakably a moan.

Edge stills. So does Red, at least for a moment. Sans contemplates the probability that the ground will open up under the bed.

Red pulls back, studying Sans. Sans blinks up at him, feeling a little dazed, and Red’s gaze softens almost imperceptibly. Red murmurs, “Yeah?”

Sans glances sidelong at Edge, taking in the careful attempt Edge is making at a neutral expression, the hectic flush on his cheekbones, the fever in his eyes, and then swallows against his dry throat and rasps, “Yeah.”

For just a moment, Edge’s restraint slips, and Sans can see how much Edge wants to touch him. He can see how hard Edge is struggling to be patient and undemanding. He’s waited so long. He’s trying so hard to be good.

Slowly, Sans leans his head back until his neck aches a little, offering Edge more to touch. Edge’s eyelights flare bright, and he draws in a breath. That restraint wobbles again, dangerously, and Sans gives Edge his best infuriating grin.

Edge’s eyes narrow just a little, but the soft huff of a breath he gives is definitely amused. He looks at Red over Sans’s shoulder and crooks a brow.

Oh so helpfully, Red answers his silent question. “He likes it when you kiss right--” Red’s clever fingers find a sensitive spot on Sans’s spine. Edge stares at it like he’s unable to look away. “-- here. Don’t you, sweetheart?”

Every rational, careful reason that Sans should say no has scattered on the breeze like dandelion fluff. He breathes, “Yeah.”

Edge doesn’t hesitate, replacing Red’s fingertips with his mouth. He doesn’t lick, doesn’t bite, just presses a simple kiss to Sans’s vulnerable throat, but the warmth of his mouth against bone jerks a soft “oh” from Sans. When Edge does it again, lingering, Sans amends that to a shaky “oh fuck,” and Edge makes a rich, pleased noise of such utter satisfaction that Sans trembles.

“Just look at you,” Red says, stroking Sans’s cheek with his thumb. The tilt of his grin looks almost fond. “He’s got you so fucked up already.”

Sans opens his mouth to call him an asshole and loses his words when Edge tastes him, the light touch of his tongue like a brand, a heat Sans can feel all the way to his pubic symphysis. Sans grabs blindly at Edge’s shoulder, digging his fingers in, and-- 

A cellphone trills.

For a moment, the three of them sit there in stunned silence. It rings again, and Red growls at Edge, “Don’t even fucking _think_ about picking that up.”

“I’m on duty,” Edge says, but he sounds more conflicted about that fact than Sans would’ve ever expected from him. 

It rings again, an unheard of third ring, and Sans just knows that makes Edge cringe on a spiritual level. Trying not to laugh, Sans says, “Just check it, edgelord.”

Red makes a highly disgruntled noise and lets Sans go. Edge sits up, grabs his phone off the bedside table, and answers it in a snarl that would have most people pissing themselves and begging for mercy. “What?”

“What the hell do you mean, what?” Undyne’s voice comes loud and clear, if a little muffled by Edge holding the cellphone against his acoustic meatus. “I’m checking in to see if everything’s okay! That was the damn protocol _you_ set up for the trip, remember?”

Edge glowers, apparently only remembering that now that he’s not distracted by making out. “Everything’s fine.”

Undyne continues her shotgun barrage of questions. “What’s going on? You didn’t pick up until the third ring! Is someone dead?”

Red groans and flops overdramatically onto his back. Sans sits up, stretching his neck in the hopes of staving off a cramp after all that craning his head around. He’s not twenty anymore. Edge stares at him for a long moment, slightly glassy-eyed, and then shakes it off and turns away. To Undyne, he snaps, “Nobody’s dead, for fuck’s sake. I was just in the middle of something.”

“Technically Sans was in the middle,” Red mutters, staring resentfully at the ceiling. “Tell the fishbitch I hope she chokes.”

Undyne is a little less audible now that she’s not yelling; she must ask something that Sans can’t hear, because Edge pinches the bridge of his nasal aperture. “No, not yet. I assumed the children wouldn’t be up yet.” Undyne says something else, and Edge continues, “_Yes_, captain, I know the schedule. I wrote the goddamn schedule. I’ll check in with them as soon as I hang up, so shut up so I don’t have to continue this fucking conversation.” Another pause while Undyne speaks, and Edge snaps, “I am not grumpy!”

He hangs up on her, looking deeply grumpy. When he looks back over his shoulder at them, his expression softens. He sighs, “I suppose you heard that.”

“Kinda hard to miss,” Sans says. “I guess you gotta check on the kids?”

Red rolls over and groans into the mattress like he’s dying. Sans sympathizes, which is the only reason he gives Red a consoling pat on the shoulder instead of shoving him out of bed.

“Knight-Knight’s shift is over,” Edge says heavily. “I’m responsible for making sure the children got through a continental breakfast buffet and onto the bus with minimum casualties to themselves and innocent bystanders.”

“I guess you better get on that, then,” Sans says.

“Yes,” Edge says, but he doesn’t move. His eyes wander to Sans’s mouth and fixate there for a very long moment before Edge clears his throat and looks away. “Things may have gotten a little out of hand.”

If there wasn’t a protective layer of bedspread between them, Edge would have a pretty good idea of how out of hand things got, considering Sans probably looks like he shoved a lightstick in his pelvis. The haze of magic hasn’t formed anything, but it’s definitely there and he’s having a hell of a time getting it to leave.

Seems like Edge is worried Sans has regrets, like Sans wasn’t right there giving him green lights the whole way. Maybe Sans could play it off like temporary insanity and have himself a good old freakout about the fact that a simple experimental kiss ended with him, Edge and Red making out like horny teenagers on prom night, but...

But what’s the point of running an experiment if he just ignores the results? He let Edge see him vulnerable and wanting, and yet he doesn’t feel the urge to retreat to a safe, comfortable distance of a few hundred miles so he can pretend that he’s never needed anything from anyone in his entire life. It’s okay. They’re okay.

Leaning back against the headboard, Sans says, “Maybe. You wanna get out of hand again sometime?”

Red makes a startled noise, eerily like a cat being woken up from a nap, and stops trying to smother himself in the mattress so he can roll over to look at Sans. With one glance, Sans knows Red knows about the situation going on in his pelvis. Red’s grin is absolutely filthy. Edge’s slow smile isn’t much better.

Sans is so screwed.

“I would love to,” Edge says with a satisfaction that makes Sans want to rub against him and purr. He glances sidelong at Red, one of those silent conversations happening in the span of microseconds, and then back at Sans. “I don’t need help with breakfast. You should have about half an hour before either of you would need to be downstairs to get on the bus, in case you had something to... attend to.”

The insinuation makes heat flood to Sans’s face. And somewhere a little lower. He swallows. “Oh. Neat.”

Red grins, curling an arm around Sans’s waist. “Yeah, I’ll take care of him for you, boss. You gonna change clothes?”

Edge looks down at his comfy sleep threads, which Sans would consider downright formal, and winces. Then he looks at Sans and Red, and it’s clearly taking everything he has not to just crawl back in bed with them and finish what they started. One corner of his mouth quirks ruefully. Quietly, Edge says, “If I stay any longer, I’m not leaving.”

“Suit yourself,” Red drawls. His hand wanders, fingertips skimming the top of Sans’s iliac crest. Sans is wound up enough that the light touch makes him shudder. He considers pushing Red’s hand away, sees the avid look in Edge’s eyes as he watches them together, and doesn’t move. He’s getting addicted to Edge’s rapt attention. It promises to be a hard habit to kick.

With a smug little sigh, Red nuzzles Sans’s collarbone through his shirt and tells Edge, “Put the ‘do not disturb’ sign on the door on your way out, huh?”

Edge takes a last look at them like a man desperately gulping water at an oasis before heading back out into the desert, then turns on his heel, grabs his boots from the side of the hot tub, and shoves them on one by one. Staring fixedly at the floor, he says, “Try to keep it down.”

In one economic motion, Red has Sans on his back in the sheets. Red stares down at him with a crooked grin and bright hellfire eyes, and Sans’s well-deserved snarl of _what the fuck, Red_ gets caught in his throat. If he tried to say it, he’d probably whimper a little. Without breaking eye contact with Sans, Red tells Edge, “No promises.”

Sans swallows hard against his dry throat. Inanely, he asks, “C’n you save me a muffin or something, edgelord?”

“You can have whatever you’d like, Sans,” Edge says. The dark promise in his voice curls its fingers tenderly around Sans’s soul. 

Somehow Sans manages not to break until the door closes behind Edge, although he doesn’t even look to be sure Edge is really gone before he grabs at Red and tries to pull him down. Red is already halfway there.

Things get a little frantic and grabby, both of them trying to wrestle each other’s clothes off first. It’s easy to get Red’s shorts down around his knees, seeing as he doesn’t have some asshole laying between his legs and making things difficult. Red makes it through about five seconds of fumbling with Sans’s shorts before he grunts in frustration, grabs the fabric in both hands, and rips the shorts open down the front seam so he can get at Sans’s pelvis.

“What the fuck, asshole,” Sans says, a little scandalized and a lot aroused. “You can’t just--”

Red viciously grinds their hips together, rubbing the hard, hot line of his dick against Sans’s pubic symphysis, and Sans goes down like a poorly constructed Jenga tower. His magic snaps into shape, stuttering as he reflexively tries to keep it under control and can’t. It’s too much. The relief of letting his magic finally form something makes everything feel sharper, and he groans with such desperation that his face burns.

“Just like that,” Red says with way more visceral approval than Sans losing control of himself deserves.

There’s the same fever in Red’s eyes as in Sans, the one that makes his soul and his magic ache to be touched. Red takes both of their cocks in hand. His dick is slick with precome, easing the glide a little as he strokes them together. After the sweet tease of kisses and the intimate promise of Edge’s mouth on his spine, Red jerking them both off fast and dirty is almost too real to take. Sans moans low in his throat, grabbing frantically at Red’s shoulders like that’ll help him keep it together, and Red gives an answering growl that says he’s right there with Sans, he’s shaking in the heat and sweat and need of it too even as he holds Sans down and ruins him.

“Yeah,” Red says almost dreamily. His hand is ruthless on Sans, dragging the pleasure out of him, forcing him closer and closer to breaking. Red knows how to touch him, how to wring him out until the breath sobs in his throat and the pleasure is so keen it’s almost pain. Sans can’t think past it, can’t hear anything but Red crooning at him. “I gotcha, sweetheart. Look at me.”

Helplessly, Sans does. He can already feel his body starting to lock up, the intensity too much for it to take. Red stares down at him, eyes burning with territorial satisfaction, and strokes them both a little faster. A few more seconds and Red shudders hard, his cock twitching against Sans’s, not breaking eye contact as he groans and starts to come in wet, scarlet pulses on Sans’s naked pelvis.

“Oh fuck,” Sans blurts, the words jerked out of his throat as he comes like Red drags him right over the cliff behind him. There’s a long several seconds where he’s drowning in it, struggling not to just lose his fucking mind because it’s too much, he can’t, and then another wave of it hits him as Red keeps going, wet and messy, fucking them both up with overstimulation, and he claws at Red’s back. He can’t tell if he’s trying to escape or to hold Red in place on top of him. When the third hard shudder wracks him, his voice doesn’t so much break as shatter. “_Red_\--”

“Shh,” Red soothes, grinning like the cruel bastard he is. Finally, his hand slows, although it doesn’t stop. Maybe because Sans is still coming, bright little aftershocks of pleasure as Red coaxes more magic out of them both. “Didn’t you hear the boss? We gotta keep it down.”

“Fuck you,” Sans groans, squeezing his eyes shut so tight he sees little sparks of lights behind his eyelids. He finally grabs Red’s wrist. “Stop before I end up jizzing spinal fluid, you asshole.”

“Nah,” Red says, mercifully stopping. “You were so pent-up that I could probably get another few loads out of you before you start coming dry.”

“Wow,” Sans says flatly, even if he’s relatively sure Red just felt his dick give a traitorous twitch. “I’m sure housekeeping would love that.”

“They’re gonna love us anyway. The bed looks like the Kool-Aid Man fucked a bottle of antifreeze.” Red climbs off him. “Lemme get a washcloth or something, you’re a goddamn mess.”

Reluctantly, Sans lets go of his wrist and listens as Red moves into the bathroom, runs the tap, and comes back. It turns out Red even used warm water. Red gets in one good swipe over Sans’s femurs before Sans opens his eyes and says, “I got it.”

Red shrugs and settles back to just watch Sans clean himself off. His magic is gone, his pelvis bare. It’s still flushed pink in places like a handy-dandy _lick here to make Red moan_ sign. 

“Hey,” Red says, jerking Sans’s attention back to his face. Red grins. “I’m flattered, but don’t get too distracted. We gotta get our shit together to leave.”

“I know,” Sans says, trying to sound annoyed. It’s a little hard when he’s still feeling those sweet endorphins. “Go put some pants on.”

“In a minute,” Red says. His grin widens. “So. The boss.”

“Yep,” Sans says, dutifully wiping magic off his ischium. It’s definitely not so he can avoid eye contact. “That happened.”

“Yeah,” Red says, dragging the word out long until it sounds absolutely filthy. “You’re fucking hot together.”

Red’s unapologetic appreciation is good for Sans’s ego. Sans rolls his shoulders, trying not to duck his head and blush like a shy virgin. “Glad it was worth the horny, horny wait.”

A pause. Red asks in a tone so subtly different that most people wouldn’t notice, “Didja like it?”

Red _knows_ he liked it, and not just from the spent magic all over Sans’s pelvis. He doesn’t really have to ask, but he can be weirdly careful about some things, in his own fucked up way. Weirdly careful with Sans. And so Sans makes eye contact, letting Red see the truth in his expression as he says quietly, “Yeah, I liked it.”

Satisfied, Red leans back and gives him a grin Sans immediately wants to return for store credit. “Anyway, I can see why you were so worried you’d mistake the boss for your bro. I mean, all those times I wandered into your room to find you grinding up on Papyrus with your tongue in his mouth--”

Sans throws the jizztastic washcloth at Red’s face.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> detailed content warnings in the endnotes (please check if you think you might need to)

There’s a scheduled stop at an art museum on the way home, which Sans might have remembered better if he actually read the trip itinerary to begin with. It kind of puts a kibosh on his plan to pretend to nap the whole drive home so as to avoid accidentally eyefucking Edge in front of a bunch of kids. (Or looking out the bus windows and seeing Gaster in every scarecrow, hitchhiker or road sign.) That’ll learn Sans to pay attention to paperwork.

Well, no. It probably won’t.

Sans has never been that annoying scientist who sneers at the fine arts or social sciences for being frivolous or whatever (unlike Gaster) but he’s hopeless at figuring out what any given painting of a nude human is supposed to represent on a deep philosophical level. Aside from, y’know, general horniness. He gives up on trying to make sense of it and starts just taking pictures of the art and texting them to his brother, who can actually appreciate them. Papyrus seems delighted, at least.

(He can feel Edge’s eyes on him like the weight of a hand on the back of his neck, keeping him warm. Speaking of general horniness.)

(Also, Red needs to be kept at least five miles from any Georgia O’Keefe exhibit. Amazingly, he manages to keep his mouth shut in front of the kids, but some of the things he whispers in Sans’s acoustic meatus are fucking _filthy_ even for him.)

But the headache doesn’t come back. Sans doesn’t see Gaster lurking. Nothing happens at the museum. Nothing happens when they stop for lunch. Nothing happens on the bus. Nothing happens when they pull into the parking lot of Toriel’s school. Nothing happens while Edge and Toriel make sure that the kids get delivered into the hands of their respective guardians. Nothing happens.

(Sans’s hand keeps drifting to the collar, silently reassuring himself that it’s still there. Just in case. In case of what, exactly, he doesn’t know.)

Anticlimactic end to the trip or not, it’s still a relief when the last of the kids have gone and he can climb in the backseat of Edge’s car and shut the doors, closing the world out. For the sake of appearances, Sans prods the back of Red’s seat with the toe of his shoe and says, “Y’know, I still think you can’t call shotgun more than an hour before you get near the goddamn vehicle.”

“You’re just pissed that you didn’t think of it first,” Red says, which is admittedly true. He cranes around in his seat to give Sans a leering grin. “You’re off your game, sweetheart. Something else on your mind?”

Involuntarily, Sans glances at Edge. He finds Edge watching him in the rearview mirror, red eyelights fixed on his, clearly taking notice of Sans’s lapse in cool. Edge smirks just a little and takes mercy on Sans, turning the key in the ignition.

Red immediately slaps the radio, turning it off before the music can start. “Nope. You’re not inflicting that shit on me again, boss. I ain’t _that_ much of a masochist.”

“Arguable,” Edge says dryly.

“Heh.” Red’s grin is crooked. “All right, maybe. Still, that’s a hard limit. Instant safeword. Stop signs as blue as your balls.”

“Tragic,” Edge sighs. “My own brother, too plebian to appreciate good music when he hears it.”

“But hey, now you know for next time that you can just cuff him to the headboard and play Ariana Grande until he cracks,” Sans says. “Way easier on your wrist than a flogger.”

“Less fun, though,” Red says.

An almost-smile touches the corners of Edge’s mouth. “There is that. Now put your seatbelts on.”

Red scoffs but does what Edge asks. Sans does the same. With that handled, Edge pulls carefully out of his parking space. Sans glances at Papyrus’s car, still parked at the edge of the lot. Papyrus apologetically texted a while ago to say that a student came to him after class, wanting to talk about something bothering them, and clearly there’s no better person to give reassurance and guidance to a struggling youth than the great Papyrus! 

(There were a lot more exclamation points involved than that, which usually means Papyrus is trying to convince himself of something. Exclamation points = confidence as far as Papyrus is concerned. Papyrus is great at his job, but he worries sometimes. Sans told him to take his time, there’ll be pizza when he gets home.)

Following his gaze, Red sees Papyrus’s car and clicks his tongue thoughtfully. Then he cranes around to look at Sans again. “Might be a while before he gets off. So to speak.”

“Okay, pinky swear you’ll never say those words in relation to my bro again or I’m flinging myself into traffic,” Sans says.

“The boss drives like a grandma,” Red says. “We’re going like ten miles an hour. You’d be fine.”

“It’s a fucking school zone,” Edge says. 

Red waves him off. “My point is do y’wanna hang out at our place until he’s done? We got a real comfy couch.” The dying sunlight paints Red’s gold tooth bloody as his grin widens. “We could pick up where we left off this morning.”

“Tempting,” Sans says. So very goddamn tempting that he’s pretty sure that if they start that up again, he’s not going to be able to make himself pump the brakes. His good intentions are getting weaker every time Edge touches him. And judging from Red’s smirk, he read every little bit of that mental digression on Sans’s face. Sans rubs absently at one socket and gives Red a rueful grin. “But maybe you better drop me off at my place. I wanna catch up on some bro time.”

“While we tell him what’s going on and start planning how to deal with that fucking asshole who’s trying to kill you?” Red asks, his eyelights as bright and sharp as his grin. “Guess that’s one way of family bonding.”

Sans glances at the rearview mirror, trying to gauge Edge’s reaction. Yeah, no, he’s not getting any help from that corner. Not with Edge’s jaw set at that familiar, stubborn angle. He sighs. “Listen, dude--”

“Oh, the reasonable voice,” Red says. “I love the reasonable voice. Means you’re about to spout some premium bullshit.”

“You agreed that we would plan once Papyrus could contribute,” Edge says.

Not exactly. Sans said that there was nothing they could do until they got back to his brother and that they could put off planning for the night. He didn’t agree to a goddamn thing. He’s good at that, always leaving himself a few dozen loopholes and escape clauses. But Edge isn’t going to let him get away with playing rules lawyer.

“We thought the situation was different last night,” Sans says. “But hey, it turns out it was just a migraine after all, so there’s not really any rush, y’know? You c’n go home and check on the cats, I’ll tell Paps what happened, everybody can sleep on it, and we’ll talk about it in a couple days, maybe.”

“At which point you’ll have come up with another reason to stall,” Edge says. 

“Give me some credit. I don’t need a couple days to come up with reasons. I’ve got plenty of them already and if I run out, I’d need five minutes to think of more, tops,” Sans says. Edge gives him a narrow-eyed, unamused look. Sans grimaces. “Okay, tough crowd.”

"I haven't had deja vu this bad since the resets," Red muses. "We keep having this same argument."

"Nobody’s arguing,” Sans says.

“No,” Red says. “At least that’d be interesting. You just play along until it seems like something’s actually going to get done, and then you start backpedaling.”

“Y’know, I’ve already got a shrink,” Sans says. “I don’t need another one.”

Red snorts. “Sweetheart, what did you think that collar means, exactly? That we’d protect you so long as it was nice and safe and comfy?”

“I didn’t agree to you doing something stupid and dying for me,” Sans says.

“Same to you,” Red shoots back. “So knock it off with your self-sacrificial bullshit and--”

“And what?” Sans asks, an edge to his voice. Not the Edge currently watching them not-argue, either. “Do whatever you say because you know what’s best for me?”

“That’s hilarious,” Red says. “You only do what I say when I got a blank check, and barely even then.”

“More to the point, we wouldn’t want you to,” Edge says, giving Red a sidelong look. Red shrugs like that should be blatantly obvious, like it shouldn’t even need saying. Then Edge briefly meets Sans’s eyes in the rearview mirror, and the warmth of his regard takes Sans’s knees out from under him. He’s almost relieved when Edge breaks eye contact to watch the road. “I understand that you’re worried that we might not survive a fight with the doctor--”

“Yeah, because like I said, we don’t have proof he can die,” Sans says. “You’re treating this like he’s just some dude you can shank in a back alley, and it’s gonna get you killed.”

“Speaking of some high-handed asshole deciding what’s best for us,” Red drawls. “So what’s your plan here, to ignore it until he forces our hand, we go in blind and then we _definitely_ all die? The reasonable thing to do--”

“Funny to hear you talking reason,” Sans says evenly, trying to ignore the sick hammering of his soul.

“More reason than you right now,” Red says, and now there’s an edge in his voice that’s probably a hell of a lot more dangerous than Sans’s. “Flap that silver tongue all you want, baby, but nobody’s gonna agree to just let him kill you.”

“That’s not what I’m--” Sans starts.

Ruthlessly, Red cuts him off. “If you don’t like the ‘stab him until he dies’ plan, then help me figure out a new one. You’re the one who remembers him. We need your goddamn input if we wanna make it out alive. So are you gonna help or just sit back and watch?”

Red’s seen the notes Sans kept from the resets, but he doesn’t give that final, vicious twist of the knife and ask if Sans is going to sit back and watch _again_. They’re both trying not to draw blood. But Red knows he doesn’t have to say it for Sans to hear it.

(Or hell, maybe Red isn’t even thinking of that. Maybe Sans just can’t imagine not hating himself for letting Papyrus die and he’s projecting his issues all over Red like an IMAX. Fuck knows he’s misjudged Red before.)

Sans looks away and stares out the car window, giving himself some mental distance. At some point, the car pulled up in front of his and Papyrus’s house. It’s not full dark yet, but the Gyftmas lights strung around their roof seem to pulse in time with his soul.

“Fine,” Sans says finally. He’s too tired to fight about it, and much as it pains him to admit it, Red has a point. “You win. Fuck knows Edge could use some backup while he’s trying to rein in your suicidal impulses.”

“Always,” Edge agrees.

“Thanks,” Red says. Which isn’t nothing, as far as Red goes. Maybe he knows that Sans would rather set himself on fire than entertain the idea of fighting Gaster. Both seem about as likely to end well. “So are we going in or what?”

“One second,” Sans says. He unbuckles his seatbelt and leans forward between the front seats, one hand braced on Red’s headrest. When Edge turns his head to look at him, Sans kisses him. It’s quick and relatively chaste, but he can see Edge’s eyelights dilate. It’s hard to tell in the fading light, but Sans thinks he sees a flush of pink across Edge’s cheekbones. Sans grins at him. “Okay, I’m good. Let’s go in.”

“Wait,” Edge says. Sans waits, and Edge rewards him with a kiss that lingers. Heat spreads in a corona around Sans’s soul, warming him to his fingertips. When Edge pulls back, Sans half expects to see their breaths steaming in the cool autumn air. Edge gives him a smug almost-smile. “Better. Thank you. Now we can go.”

“What, no smooch for me?” Red asks. He looks like he doesn’t mind either way, content to be a weird voyeur.

“You ripped open a perfectly good pair of shorts this morning,” Sans says. “So no, none for you.”

“They were my goddamn shorts, asshole,” Red says. His grin sharpens. “Besides, you were into it.”

“Dream big, starshine,” Sans says.

In other words, neither of them are going to hold a grudge after that unpleasantly honest conversation. It’s fine. Situation normal, all fucked up.

They make their way out of the car and into the house. Papyrus remembered to lock the door, which means Sans has to rummage around in his inventory in a vain attempt to find his keys until Edge sighs and just unlocks it for him. The dog greets them at the door with a few gravity-defying leaps and a flurry of squeaky barks until Edge tosses a bone for him, at which point he disappears under the kitchen table with his ill-gotten gains. His frantically wagging tail still sticks out from beneath Papyrus’s chair.

Wiping his hands on a handkerchief, Edge says, “This is why I prefer cats.”

“Uh-huh,” Sans says, even though he finds Edge’s disdain about as believable as Papyrus’s threats that there will be no more petting until all gratuitous attack-thievery ceases. He saw that hint of a smile when the dog hovered at ideal head-scritching level and stared up at Edge with worshipful puppy eyes. “I’m gonna grab some pizza coupons from the kitchen before we order.”

“I can get them,” Edge says.

“Nothing’s wrong with my legs, dude,” Sans says, grinning. He drags his duffel out of his inventory and tosses it at Edge, who easily catches it. “If you wanna do me a solid, couldja throw that in my bedroom?”

“Of course,” Edge says, because he’s a chivalrous motherfucker. He heads up the stairs, long legs eating up the distance, and Sans doesn’t stare at his ass. Much. 

(It’s a nice ass.)

Red’s already flung himself into Sans’s spot on the sofa, sunk deep into the ass-grooves that Sans has worked so hard to erode into the cushions. Grinning at him, Red says, “Hey, c’n you get me that can of whipped cream Paps keeps in the fridge for me? I wanna do some shots.”

“Nope,” Sans says. He can only imagine what a menace Red would be with whipped cream to lick off his fingers while making significant eye contact. There’d probably be a lot of lewd cream-based double entendres. “That’s for when you get insomnia and drop in at 3 AM to watch bad reality TV with my bro. Some things are sacred.”

“You’re breaking my heart,” Red says. “How about a soda?”

“If I can have my seat back,” Sans says.

Red pats his knees. “I always got a nice comfy one for you right here, babe.”

“So no soda,” Sans says. “Got it.”

“You’ll get me one anyway,” Red says.

“Good luck with that,” Sans says, and walks into the kitchen in the full knowledge that he’ll get Red the goddamn soda.

Sans plucks the coupons from where they’ve been attached to the fridge with a magnet Papyrus bought on their impromptu vacation. Then he squints at them because they don’t look right, like the ink has run together. He can’t quite make out the stupid code that he’s supposed to give when he calls. He brings the coupon closer to his face, trying harder to focus until there’s a dull ache in his skull, but still the words don’t make sense.

And then it’s not a dull ache anymore, even after he lowers the coupon and blinks to clear his head. The magnet looks blurry and weird too, and the lights that were fine a minute ago look too bright. There’s a faint hum in his skull, like the fluorescent lights in the lab, like a blaster about to go off.

“Goddamn it,” Sans mutters. So much for that migraine staying gone.

“What?” Red calls from the living room.

“Nothing,” Sans tells him. Raising his voice to be heard is a mistake; his head throbs like an infected burn.

There’s movement at his feet. Sans looks down and finds the dog peering up at him. Even though his white fur kind of blurs into the white kitchen tiles right now, his doggy expression looks worried. Sans contemplates the process of bending down to pat the dog’s head in a reassuring sort of way and discards it as a bad idea. It seems like a long way down, suddenly.

The dog barks, and it seems to pierce right through Sans’s skull. Sans winces. “Gimme a sec, buddy, I just--”

The pain rises exponentially, choking his words off in his throat. He grabs at the counter to steady himself as his knees try to buckle. It’s worse than the planetarium now. Worse even that the headaches he had back in the lab as a teenager. It feels like his skull is cracking open from the pressure behind his left eyesocket.

“Red?” Sans says, his voice cracked and too small.

The pain spikes, stealing his breath. His knees cave out from under him, and then he’s on his hands and knees on the kitchen floor. The impact brings another jolt of agony, and something in his skull seems to _give_. His vision floods with darkness.

When the world swims back into woozy focus, there’s black fluid splattered across the kitchen tiles. His face is wet. As he stares, another few thick drops join the rest. It’s the goop Gaster dripped in the void, the goop he left on Sans’s hoodie, and now it’s bleeding out of Sans’s eyes. It’s _in_ him.

The dog growls, a sound Sans has never heard before. It’s ominous and surprisingly low for such a small dog, like it’s coming from something much bigger. His hackles are bristling, and he’s staring over Sans’s left shoulder.

There’s something standing behind Sans.

“No,” Sans says, the word surprisingly clear over the shrill ringing in his skull. “No.”

The seizure drops him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: Sans and Red have a verbal dust-up; Red pushes Sans pretty hard re: his reluctance to even plan for the possibility of fighting Gaster; Sans projects his own self-loathing onto Red and assumes Red judges him for his inaction in the resets; Sans has a seizure; body horror (void goop leaking from Sans's sockets)
> 
> You ever think about the fact that Papyrus canonically painted that one landscape with enough photorealistic detail that Frisk thought they were standing on a rope bridge? Because I think about that shit all the time. Also, sorry if you're subscribed to the snippet collection and you just got a double notification email from AO3, I accidentally posted this chapter in the wrong place and had to delete it and try again.


End file.
